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TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 



TYPES OF SCHOOLS 
FOR BOYS 



Alfred E. Stearns, L. R. Gignilliat, Milo H. Stuart 
Eric Parson and J. J. Findlay 



CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH SERIES 

Edited by M. V. O'Shea 
Professor of Education, The University of Wisconsin 



INDIANAPOLIS 

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



Copyright 1917 
The Bobbs-Merrill Company 






I 



'XS 



PRESS OF 

BRAUNWORTH & CO. 

BOOK MANUFACTURERS! 

BROOKLYN, N. V. 

t4!317 
S)Gi,A460769 



EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 

As the social and industrial life of a people becomes 
more complex, the schools tend to become differen- 
tiated and specialized. A nation could not develop very- 
complex activities if all the young were trained in 
schools organized and conducted in the same way, with 
just the same course of study. It will be granted that 
all pupils should receive similar training for substan- 
tially the period of the elementary school in our coun- 
try ; but beyond that there must be special courses and 
types of schools for different social and industrial 
conditions and needs. And it is as important that 
appropriate kinds of schools should be provided for 
different economic and social groups as for various in- 
dustrial groups. This general principle is apparently 
recognized in American life, since there is developing 
among us a variety of types of schools which are de- 
signed to give the kind of training which is deemed to 
be most suitable for the different industrial, economic 
and social groups. 

The purpose of the present volume is to present con- 
crete and detailed information regarding the ideals, the 
distinguishing traits, and to some extent the achieve- 
ments of the principal types of schools for boys in this 
country. It is generally believed that the so-called 
public schools for boys in England have played a lead- 
ing role in the training of leaders in English political, 
intellectual and social life, and so they are described in 
this volume in the belief that we may profit by them in 



EDITOR S INTRODUCTION 

the development of our own schools. The command 
was laid upon each author, who is thoroughly familiar 
with the type of schools which he treats, to give an 
inside view of his school, so that a parent or teacher 
or student of education might see the actual, e very-day 
life of the school, including its class-room activities, 
its games and sports, its government, and the relations 
between pupils or cadets and masters or instructors. 

Any person who will read this book will see that the 
types of schools represented differ markedly from one 
another in matters of fundamental importance, as well 
as in details of organization, administration and disci- 
pline. A student of American social and industrial 
conditions will probably feel that these various types 
of schools meet an increasingly important need. At 
the same time, it must be recognized that there are 
many laymen, and also teachers, who are opposed to 
some of these types of schools for boys, mainly be- 
cause all they know about them they have gained from 
rumor. The present writer has heard men vigorously 
condemn military schools and church schools, and in 
fact all private schools. They have maintained that 
American boys should all be educated together in pub- 
lic schools. On the other hand, the writer has heard 
men condemn all public schools, either because of their 
supposed materialistic or commercial or irreligious 
character, or because of the general flabbiness of their 
work. It is probable that these criticisms would be 
much less common and severe if men really understood 
the aims, practises and every-day life of the schools 
which they censure. 

The writer feels he can say from first-hand observa- 



EDITOR S INTRODUCTION 

tion of the types of schools described in this volume that 
they are all needed for the proper education of the vari- 
ous groups of boys in American life. The problem is 
to guide each boy to attach himself to the school which 
is best adapted to his economic status, his interests 
and his plans for his life-work. It is believed that this 
book will help parents and teachers to advise boys so 
that they may choose their secondary schools wisely. 
It should also be of interest and assistance to boys 
themselves who are undecided regarding the secondary 
school which they ought to attend. No one will prob- 
ably say that what is set forth herein is dry or dull or 
abstruse or technical. Each author has kept a real 
audience in view, and he has given a concrete, lively 
character to all he has written. 

Madison, Wisconsin. M. V. O'Shea. 



CONTENTS 

THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I Historical 1 

Earliest American Academy — First Typically 
American Academy — The Academy and the 
Public High School — Difficulties of Early 
Academies — Influence of the Academy on the 
High School. 

II Aims and Ideals 8 

Emphasis on Character in the Constitution of 
Philipps Academy — Character Must Include 
Mind and Morals — Significance of Education — 
The Academy and Preparation for College — 
Emphasis Still Placed by the Academy on Char- 
acter. 

Ill The Place of the Academy in Modern Educa- 
tion 14 

Function of State Universities — Function of 
Eastern Colleges — Relation of Academy to 
Eastern Colleges — The Academy as a Finishing 
School — The Academy and Western Pupils — 
Classes from which the Academy Draws Stu- 
dents — Special Attractions of Academy as a 
Finishing School. 

ly Advantages and Disadvantages 22 

Control of Students' Time — Physical Equip- 
ment — The Value of Age and Tradition — The 
Democracy of the Academy — The Independence 
of the Academy — The Ability of the Academy 
to Lead — Contrasting Methods of Academy and 
Other Boarding-Schools — The Academy's Pol- 
icy Not Best for All — Attitude of Parents and 
Academy Contrasted — Mature Boys Naturally 
Prefer Academy — Recent Steps Taken to At- 
tract Younger Boys — The Public School and 
Politics — Value of Independence to Teacher 



CONTE'NTS— Continued 

CHAPTER PAGE 

and Pupil — Appeal of Academy to Teachers — 
The Religious Element in the Academy — Value 
of Routine — Methods of Caring for Physical 
Needs of Pupils. 

V The Future of the Academy 44 

Effect on Academy of Development of Higher 
Institutions. 



MILITARY SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 

I Origin and Classification S3 

Influence of West Point — The First Private 
Military Schools — Aid from the National Gov- 
ernment — Military Spirit Fostered — Advantages 
of the Essentially Military Schools — Classifica- 
tion of Military Schools and Colleges — The 
Type of School under Discussion — Present 
Value to Government of Military Training in 
Schools — Distinguished Colleges and Honor 
Schools — Commission in the Regular Army for 
Honor Graduates — The Reserve Officers' Train- 
ing Corps. 

II The Daily Life of the Cadet in the Strictly 

Military School 64 

His First Days at the School — Beginning the 
Regular Routine — His Hour of Rising — Taking 
Care of His Room — The Cadet at Mess — Study 
Hours and Classes — At Drill — His Leisure 
Time — The Evening Hours — His Bodily De- 
velopment — The Acquirement of System and 
Order — The Spiritual Phase of the Cadet's Life. 

III The Faculty 80 

The Academic Staff— The Military Staff- 
Oversight of Cadets — Personal Relations be- 
tween Officers and Cadets. 

IV Studies and Method of Instruction .... 85 

Danger of Military Features Overshadowing 
the Academic — Supervision of Class-Room 
Work— Mental Tests— The West Point Plan of 
Small Sections — Special Provision for Boys 
Who Do Not Go to College. 



CONTENTS— Con^wM^i 

CHAPTER PAGE 

V The System of Government by Cadets ... 92 
Selection of Cadet Officers — Training of Cadet 
Officers — The Cadet Officer's Responsibility. 

VI Discipline 97 

The Need for Discipline — Effectiveness of the 
Military System — To Command Respect the 
Discipline Must Be Real — Illustrating the Ef- 
fect on the Boy — Respect for Authority — A 
Fine Test of Discipline — Hazing — Combina- 
tions Most Serious Menace to Discipline. 

VII Rewards and Penalties 110 

Other Rewards for Good Discipline — Assign- 
ments of Demerits and Penalties — The Cadet's 
Word Is Never Questioned — Extra Duty — Pro- 
cedure in Serious Cases of Discipline. 

VIII Ideals of the Military School 120 

Preparation for Citizenship — The Spirit of De- 
mocracy — The Ideal of Service. 



THE MANUAL-TRAINING HIGH SCHOOL 

I Province OF the Manual-Training High School 129 
Close Kinship of Great Schools — "New" High 
Schools Old as Human Nature — Distinctive At- 
mosphere of Schools — High School Like Novel 
of Dickens — Reasons Why High Schools Are 
Intensely Human — Province to Reach All Boys 
and Girls — Consequent Peculiar Accountability 
— Manual Arts Introduced for Those Not in 
School — Purpose Constant through Experimen- 
tation — Plight without Help to Schools. 

II The Place of Manual Arts in the Curriculum 140 
The Most Common Imitation — Main Function 
to Give Fair Chance — Manual Arts on Same 
Basis as Academic Work — Difference between 
High School and Trade School — Artisan Stage 
of Growth — Educational Value of Any Subject 
— Boy's Longing a Clue to His Need — It Does 
Reach Boys Otherwise on the Street— Cases of 
Retreaters — Manual Arts as Training for Ado- 



CONTENTS— CoM^mw^d 

CHAPTER PAGE 

lescents — Relation to College Entrance — Real 
Difficulty in Judging — Standardized Subjects 
Easier to Handle — No Halo of Association — 
Taint of Toil — Geometry Once a "Practical" 
Subject — Quality of Boys Determines College 
Entrance — Place of Manual Arts in Curriculum 
Established. 

III The Elective System and Project Work . . 154 

Elective System a Necessity — Synopsis of One 
Plan — Limitations to Choice — Does the Elective 
System Discipline? — High School a Testing 
Ground — Second Age of Beginning — Concen- 
tration the Natural Method — Moral Effect — 
"Snap Hunters" — Project Work — The Elective 
System without School — Elective System vs. 
Uniformity. 

IV Vocational Possibilities of a High School . . 167 

"Vocational" a Relative Term — How May High 
Schools Teach Vocations? — Boys Who Are to 
Enter Professions — What the Professions In- 
clude — Agricultural Occupations — The Indus- 
tries — All-Day Vocational Departments — Lines 
Leading from Vocational Schools — Managing 
Professions — Education for Routine Work. 

V By-Products 181 

American Tendency to Take Deepest Things 
for Granted — Training in Morals Different 
from Training in Theory of Morals — Charac- 
ter Training Like Strengthening the Heart — 
Action to Keep Pace with Thought and Feeling 
— Greatest Claim of Manual-Arts Schools — 
Examples of Problems Solved by Boys — Class- 
ics Also Concerned — Intimate Relations with 
Teachers — Relation to the Home — The Com- 
munity Touch — Social Life — Kinship of Doers 
—An "Introducer." 



THE CHURCH SCHOOL 

History 197 

Rapid Growth of This Type — Its Origin — The 
Founding of the Round Hill School — Activities 



CONTENTS— Continued 

CHAPTER PAGE 

at the Round Hill School — Quality of Instruc- 
tion — Objects of Instruction — Emphasis upon 
Outdoor Activities — Moral Instruction — The 
School's Head Master — St. Paul's — The Per- 
sonality of Doctor Coit — The Church School 
and the High School — Causes for Develop- 
ment of the Church School (1) Its Demand 
for Union of Secular and Religious Education 
— (2) Success as a College Preparatory School 
— (3) Social Advantages. 

II Aims 207 

General Aims of the Church School — Emphasis 
upon Preparation for College — Influence of the 
University — The Church School and Religion 
— Habit and Discipline — The Classical Tradi- 
tion — The Church School's Faith in Formal 
Discipline — Limited Interest in Pedagogical 
Theory Among Teachers — Traditional and Ob- 
solete Theories Have Determined the School's 
Aims — Physical Training a Part of Education 
— School and Home. 

III Activities 219 

Religious Services — Religious Instruction — 
Sunday at Church Schools — Time Spent on 
Study — Method of Study — Limited Application 
of Supervised Study — Limited Utilization of 
Interest — Reasons for Efficiency in Intellectual 
Accomplishment — The Marking System — De- 
tention — Preparation for College — The Curricu- 
lum — Minor Studies — Extra Activities — Exer- 
cise — Dormitory Life — Prefect System — Ab- 
sence of Self-Government — A School Day. 

IV Place of the Church School in Education . . 235 

The Church School Not a Tutoring School — 
The Church School's Problem — The Commu- 
nity which the Church School Serves — Advan- 
tages of Serving a Single Social Group — Dis- 
advantages of Serving a Single Group — Extra- 
Mural Supervision in High School, Academy 
and Church School — Advantages of Extra- 
Mural Supervision — Disadvantages of Constant 
Supervision — Disciplinary Religious Training 
Does Not Tend to Make Boys Religious — The 



CONTE'NTS— Continued 

CHAPTER PAGE 

Church School's Attitude toward the Teaching 
of Science — Absence of Vocational Guidance — 
The Church School and the Elementary School 
— Graduates — Permanence of the Church- 
School Type — Elements of Change — Future 
Government — The Conference of the Future — 
The Future of the Schools Depends upon En- 
dowment — The Future of the School Depends 
upon the University — The Future of the School 
Depends upon Experiments Now Being Tried 
in One or Two Schools — Radical Changes Not 
to Be Looked For. 



THE ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOL 

I Introductory and Historical 255 

How the Public Schools Originated — Learning 
to "Rough It" — The Schools a Hundred Years 
Ago — Arnold and the Public-School System. 

II Distinctive Features of the Public School . 262 
The Equipment of the Schools — Communities 
of Adolescents — Social Groupings — "Fags" and 
"Prepostors" — The "Sixth Form" — The Rule of 
Absolutism — Primus Inter Pares. 

III The Curriculum in Public Schools .... 272 

Motives for Admitting New Studies — The In- 
fluence of Oxford and Cambridge — Extension 
of the Scholarship System — The Dominant 
Type of Teaching — Difference between English 
and Prussian Systems — Illustration of Curricu- 
lum and Organization — The Fine Arts and 
Handicrafts — Music — Drawing and Painting — 
Handicrafts — Abbotsholme and Bedales. 

IV Relation of the Public School to English Life 288 

Public-School Men in Public Life — Relation to 
Trade and Manufacture — The Public Schools 
and Political Life — The Public Schools and the 
Ruling Caste — The Public Schools and Democ- 
racy — The Public Schools and Corporate Life — 
The Life, Not the Curriculum, Socialized — • 
Arnold and Dewey Complementary. 



CONTENTS— CoMfmM^J 

CHAPTER PAGE 

V New Tendencies and Conditions to Be Met . . 300 
New Factors in Public School Administration 
— The PubHc-School Master Hears the Call of 
the World— A New Type of Boy in the Public 
Schools — The Trend of the Times — The Soft- 
ening Tendencies of the Age — What of the Fu- 
ture? 

Index . . v . . . -. .i > >- ■r . t • 313 



TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 



The American Academy 

By Alfred E. Stearns 



TYPES OF SCHOOLS 
FOR BOYS 

The American Academy 

CHAPTER I 

HISTORICAL 

THE academy, as we know it, is distinctly an 
American institution, yet its origin was really 
in England, and its first appearance is recorded as far 
back as the middle of the seventeenth century. The 
little village of Rathwill claims the distinction of giv- 
ing birth to this new type of school and the year was 
probably 1665. By the Act of Uniformity of 1662 
about two thousand clergymen were driven from their 
pulpits, and non-conformists were refused admission 
to the public schools and universities. As teachers 
these banished clergymen found a fertile field for the 
exercise of their talents, and among the children of 
their non-conformist brethren they speedily found 
their scholars. The schools which were thus estab- 
lished to meet these unique conditions were the fore- 
runners of our later American academies. Before the 
outbreak of the American Revolution about thirty of 

1 



2 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

these academies had come into existence in England. 
Some of them were local institutions only; but not a 
few became boarding-schools not wholly unlike the 
English public schools in organization and character. 

In one important respect the new academy differed 
from the English public schools. Founded by clergy- 
men and drawing its students from the families of 
those who had sacrificed much for their religious con- 
victions, it was but natural that the academy should 
have been dominated by a strong non-conformist, re- 
ligious influence. The subjects provided in the cur- 
riculum, therefore, were primarily those that were 
regarded as essential from the view-point of the clergy- 
man. The classics with Hebrew and the Scriptures 
were duly emphasized. But with the universities 
closed against its pupils the academy was naturally 
bound to become something of a finishing school and 
hence not a few university subjects found their place 
in the curriculum. Because of its independent posi- 
tion the new school was largely freed from the dom- 
ination of the university, and it may truly be said that 
the early academy represented a spirit of dissent, re- 
ligious and academic as well. Because of this spirit 
of dissent it is not to be wondered at that the English 
academy furnished the most satisfactory model for our 
American forefathers as they labored to found and 
develop on the western continent schools suited to the 
needs of American youth. 

Earliest American Academy.- — The earliest of our 
American academies was that founded in Philadelphia 
in 1751 under the personal influence of Benjamin 
Franklin. It was known as The Public Academy in 



THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 3 

the City of Philadelphia. As this new academy was 
partly supported by state and city funds and as its 
courses included not only those of the ordinary sec- 
ondary school but those of the higher institutions as 
well, it can not be fairly said to represent the true type 
of the American academy that a little later found such 
favor with the American public and grew so rapidly in 
size and number. Indeed Franklin's academy later 
lost its identity entirely and developed into the Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania. 

The endowed American academy, like most of our 
earliest institutions of learning, really had its birth in 
New England. It was conceived in Puritan minds, 
fostered by Puritan thought and guided and developed 
in its early life by Puritan intelligence and zeal. While 
the more daring and adventurous of the early American 
pioneers pushed their conquest of the new continent 
steadily westward their more cultured and intellectual 
countrymen who remained behind turned zealously to 
the task of making these conquests sure. 

Of the New England academies Dummer Academy 
in South Byfield, Massachusetts, enjoys the distinc- 
tion of being the oldest. It was founded in the year 
1763 but was not incorporated until nineteen years 
later. Its founder was the Honorable William Dum- 
mer, who had served as lieutenant-governor of the 
Province of Massachusetts Bay from 1716 to 1730 and 
acting governor from 1723 to 1728. 

First Typically American Academy.— It was not, 
however, until the founding of Phillips Academy at 
Andover, Massachusetts, in 1778, and its sister school, 
the Phillips-Exeter Academy at Exeter, New Hamp- 



4 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

shire, several years later, that the distinctive type of 
American academy may fairly be said to have come into 
existence. These two schools were the first incor- 
porated academies in this country. From the outset 
they were national in their scope; and among their 
earliest scholars were the nephews and grand-nephews 
of President Washington himself, sent from far-away 
Virginia to secure the advantages afforded by this new 
type of school. Other academies were rapidly founded 
from this time on, and for nearly a century the acad- 
emy occupied a commanding position in the field of 
American secondary education. 

In the year 1850 the number of academies is offi- 
cially reported to have been between six and seven 
thousand. A few years later the number began stead- 
ily to decline. The official report for the year 1910 
gives the number as eighteen hundred. This period 
of decline corresponds with the period of the birth and 
the rapid growth and expansion of the public high 
school. 

The Academy and Public High School. — It was 
but natural that the public high school should largely 
supplant the academy. With few exceptions the early 
academies were largely local institutions and feebly en- 
dowed. They made little if any effort to attract pu- 
pils from districts not close at hand. Not many could 
fairly be regarded as boarding-schools though provision 
was not infrequently made in the homes of teachers 
or neighbors for a few students who might come from 
outside the town limits. They were thus the fore- 
runners of the modern high school ; and with the ever 
increasing demand for education free to all and pro- 



THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 5 

vided at the expense of the individual town or city 
most of these early academies were ere long sup- 
planted by the more modern institution or merged 
within it. A few indeed, like Franklin's academy in 
Philadelphia, became the foundation of higher institu- 
tions. Throughout New England to-day the results 
of this process are everywhere in evidence. Many lo- 
cal high schools still carry as part of their equipment 
the names, the endowments, and even in some cases 
the buildings of the early academies from which these 
more modern schools have been evolved or to which 
they have been grafted. 

Difficulties of Early Academies. — Not all, how- 
ever, have suffered this fate. Those which in their 
earliest conception were national rather than local in 
their scope have followed a different course. Some 
have been hampered by conditions and limitations that 
have checked their growth and influence. Denomina- 
tional restrictions have in some cases seriously cur- 
tailed the constituencies from which pupils could be 
drawn. Coeducational proscriptions have proved an 
almost insurmountable obstacle for others. When 
progress has been questionable or at best slow the fault 
will generally be found to exist in the narrowness or 
inflexibility of the early foundation. Held in check by 
limitations of this kind, it is not surprising that many 
academies, the natural resources and earlier prestige 
of which would seem to have justified a longer exist- 
ence and larger usefulness, have surrendered to the 
keen competition of the public high schools and the 
more modern private boarding-schools. Not infre- 
quently the courts have been appealed to for help in 



6 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

the effort to break away from restrictions clearly preju- 
dicial to growth if not actual existence. When these 
appeals have been heeded readjustments have fol- 
lowed with most beneficial results. Even to-day it 
is not uncommon to find one of these early institu- 
tions undergoing as it were a new birth, bringing with 
it the prospects of renewed activity and increasing use- 
fulness. 

Fortunate indeed have been those academies that 
were founded by men of sufficient intelligence and far- 
sightedness to plan their schools on national lines with 
foundations broad and flexible enough to make possi- 
ble such readjustments as changing conditions and 
modern demands have made necessary. Few in num- 
ber though these academies are, their growth has been 
steady and wholesome until to-day the best of them 
are not able to provide for the increasing number of 
those who seek their advantages. The two Phillips 
academies at Andover and Exeter have steadily added 
to their equipment in buildings and funds : their fac- 
ulties within the past twenty-five years have more than 
doubled in size; and their enrolments, now nearly six 
hundred for each school, are limited only by the ca- 
pacity of the schools themselves and the judgment of 
the school authorities as to the number of pupils that 
can be most effectively handled. In age and in unin- 
terrupted growth these two academies are perhaps 
unique; but others have followed the same general 
lines of development, and this too in spite of the amaz- 
ing growth and spread not only of the public high 
schools but of the private boarding and day schools as 
well. 



THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 7 

Influence of the Academy on the High School. — 

During the period that marks the advent and spread 
of the public high school the academy performed an 
important function. In a very real sense it may be 
said to have standardized the work of the more mod- 
ern institution. Especially was this true in matters 
relating to the curriculum. Courses of study already 
finally established in the older institution became at 
once a part of the curriculum of the more modern 
school. What had been proved to be good in the old 
was considered good enough for the new. And for 
many years after the newer institution had finally 
established its place in the American educational 
scheme, both the curriculum and standards of work 
of the academy exerted a strong and telling influence 
upon the public high school. Indeed only in compara- 
tively recent years may it be truly said that the high 
school, yielding to the immediate demands of the pub- 
lic which it serves, has broken away from these stand- 
ards and struck out on its own individual lines; yet 
even here the influence of the academy has been con- 
servative and wholesome in checking radical and ec- 
centric tendencies so common in the public school. 



CHAPTER II 



AIMS AND IDEALS 



THE founders of our earliest academies have 
made clear in many ways the ideals that inspired 
their acts. Without exception these men were men of 
lofty minds and unselfish lives, fervent patriots and 
law-abiding, God-fearing citizens. The fact that they 
were in all cases not theorists, but active public servants 
filling successfully some of the highest offices of the 
land, is evidence that they believed that this new type 
of school was to fill an important place in the life of 
the nation. As they looked with deep anxiety toward 
the future of the new republic the belief became a 
deep-rooted conviction that education was to safeguard 
the destinies of the nation. 

No narrow definition of education would suit their 
high purpose. Education must be of the whole man, 
mind, soul and body. They realized the great truth 
that the stability and permanent greatness of any na- 
tion must depend primarily upon the sound character 
of the individual citizen. Neither intellectual greatness 
nor moral worth by itself would satisfy their ideal. In- 
deed, the former they regarded as dangerous ; the latter 
as weak. One must complement the other if true char- 
acter was to be obtained. Character, therefore, was 
the paramount issue; character made up of a trained 

8 



THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 9 

and active intellect fortified by a vigorous and rugged 
morality. 

Emphasis on Character in the Constitution of 
Phillips Academy. — It would be difficult to find a 
clearer definition of this aim than as it is set forth in 
the constitution of Phillips Academy, written by its 
founder in the year 1777. Judge Phillips had no other 
document of a similar character to guide him in his 
task ; but the ideals here so clearly set forth are found 
in similar though varying forms in the constitutions of 
many later academies scattered throughout the land. 
That these aims may be clearly understood a few ex- 
tracts from this document are given below. 

In the opening preamble, after the reasons for 
founding the academy are carefully enumerated, it is 
stated that the school is established "for the purpose of 
instructing youth, not only in English and Latin gram- 
mar, writing, arithmetic, and those sciences, wherein 
they are commonly taught; but more especially to 
learn them the great end and real business of living." 
The italics are mine; but this last clause, couched in 
such homely but convincing language, so clearly and 
comprehensively sets forth the purpose of the founders 
of this academy, and others of those early years, that 
it can not be too strongly emphasized. 

Character Must Include Mind and Morals. — Later 
in the document, and by way of explaining how this 
object may best be attained, this significant paragraph 
occurs: "It shall ever be considered as the first and 
principal duty of the master, to regulate the tempers, 
to enlarge the minds, and form the morals of the youth 
committed to his care." 



10 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

But the clearest exposition of the true meaning of 
education as this founder conceived it is stated in a still 
later paragraph which can not well be abridged. I 
give it, therefore, in full : 

"But, above all, it is expected that the master's at- 
tention to the disposition of the minds and morals of 
the youth, under his charge, will exceed every other 
care; well considering that, though goodness without 
knowledge (as it respects others) is weak and feeble; 
yet knowledge without goodness is dangerous ; and that 
both united, form the noblest character, and lay the 
surest foundations of usefulness to mankind." 

There can be no mistaking the meaning of these 
words. A sounder definition of education it would be 
difficult to find. And the same spirit permeates this 
document from beginning to end. 

I have dwelt at some length on the constitution re- 
ferred to above partly because it is the one most famil- 
iar to me, but chiefly because, written as it was during 
the latter part of the eighteenth century, it has served 
as a model for many of our American academies of 
later date, and hence may be taken as fairly representa- 
tive of those later documents embodying the aims and 
ideals of the founders of these schools. 

Significance of Education. — To the thoughtful 
men of these early and stirring times the greatest 
dangers that threatened the young republic in its 
natural process of growth and expansion were believed 
to be rooted in the ignorance of its citizens. Whatever 
of vice or disorder cast its benumbing shadow on the 
land was attributed to this common cause. Education, 
therefore, was to be the remedy for the country's ills. 



THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 11 

And yet the very fact that these thoughtful philan- 
thropists confidently expected so much from the appli- 
cation of their favorite remedy prompted them to 
guard jealously against the dilution of the ingredients 
of which it was composed. On this point they were 
clear. And that others might not be misled they con- 
stantly reiterated their belief that education must in- 
clude the whole man, mind, soul and body, if the real 
end sought for, the formation of sound character, was 
to be successfully attained. 

It is clear then that the supreme goal of education, 
as interpreted by the academy, was to be the develop- 
ment of a sound character for the individual citizen. 
The exploitation of the material resources of the land 
had not yet lured men from the higher claims of citi- 
zenship. Materialism had not spread its subtle influ- 
ence over men's thoughts and activities. The value 
of a good citizen was rated higher than the value of a 
successful business man, a clever lawyer, or an expert 
engineer. The ideals of the Puritan still exerted their 
influence on the minds of men and, in a measure, 
molded their acts. Good citizenship alone could insure 
the stability and permanence of the new republic ; and 
good citizenship involved then as it does now good 
character. And so the early academies, like the col- 
leges, strove to send forth into the world men of 
trained and quickened intellects, men of sound and 
rugged morality, men of religious conviction and sin- 
cere piety, men in fact who should be willing and able 
to devote their talents to the service of state and na- 
tion, that the future might be safeguarded and made 
secure. 



12 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

The Academy and Preparation, for College. — 

While the academy thus laid its chief emphasis on the 
training for life, the claims of the higher institutions 
were not ignored and preparation for college early 
became an important part of the academy's work. 
That this was not intended to be the chief function 
of the academy has already been shown. And yet it 
seems clear that in the minds of the founders this 
function, too, had been considered and provided for. 
Yet these men can hardly have anticipated the de- 
velopment of later years which made the academy 
more and more a preparatory school for college and 
increasingly less a training school for life. 

It was during that period that marks the growth 
and rapid development of the public high school that 
the academy shifted its emphasis to the preparation 
for college. This was natural enough. Supported at 
the public expense the high school was subjected to 
an increasing pressure to serve its immediate constitu- 
ency. Recognizing that the majority of the high- 
school pupils would not or could not go on with the 
higher education, the public demanded that the high 
school give its pupils more practical subjects than those 
required for admission to college. To this demand the 
high school has justly yielded. In doing so, however, 
it has not been able to place so much emphasis on 
its college preparatory work. Just the opposite course 
has been pursued by the academy. Those pupils who 
have sought training along practical lines have natu- 
rally turned in increasing numbers to the high school, 
depriving the academy of a large portion of its former 
constituency. On the other hand, those who have de- 



THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 13 

sired preparation for college have turned steadily to- 
ward the schools that make college preparation their 
specialty. Recognizing these changed conditions, the 
academy has wisely shifted the emphasis to college 
preparatory work. To-day the leading academies are 
largely fitting schools for our eastern colleges and uni- 
versities and for the reasons stated above. 

Emphasis Still Placed by the Academy on Char- 
acter.- — In spite of the changes in its curriculum re- 
ferred to above, the academy has never lost sight of 
the great aim of its founders — the development of 
character. Seeking always to stimulate and strengthen 
the intellectual life of its pupils, it has constantly 
sought as well to minister to their moral needs and 
to develop and satisfy religious longings. Whatever 
has tended to develop sound character in the school' 
life has been fostered and encouraged. Religion, as 
in the past, exerts a strong and uplifting influence on 
the student body. Though the courses of study are 
planned primarily to fit pupils for the higher institu- 
tions, the daily routine with its numerous and whole- 
some activities, and the influences which permeate the 
school life, are definitely planned to develop character ; 
in a word to meet the needs of mind and soul and 
body. From the academy's standpoint education 
should and does minister to the needs of the whole 
man. 



CHAPTER III 

THE PLACE OF THE ACADEMY IN MODERN EDUCATION 

WE have already seen that the academy in its 
more recent development has become distinctly 
a fitting school for the college and university. And 
it is interesting to note that the oldest and to-day the 
strongest of our academies are primarily fitting schools 
for the higher institutions of the East. The academy, 
as a distinct type of school, has almost wholly disap- 
peared in our western and southern states. Where 
it still exists there it is fighting hard for its life or has 
undergone modifications which have radically changed 
its character. In most of those cases where it still 
retains its historic features it will be found to be in 
close alliance with higher institutions patterned after 
the eastern college and still retaining the ideals of the 
early New England institution. It is in the East, and 
especially in the New England states, that the historic 
academy has enjoyed the most conspicuous growth and 
to-day occupies a position of greatest prosperity and 
strength. To appreciate the reasons for this we must 
note the character and significant growth of our great 
state universities of the West and South and must un- 
derstand the marked distinctions that separate them 
in aims and ideals from the older colleges and univer- 
sities of the East. 

14 



THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 15 

Function of State Universities. — Like the public 
high school, the state university has been called into 
existence by a definite public demand. In many re- 
spects and for similar reasons it embodies the strength 
and the weakness of the public school. It is supported 
by public funds, is subject to political influence and 
control, and is compelled to teach those subjects de- 
manded by the immediate constituency that it serves 
and in a way that this constituency desires. Like the 
public school, therefore, its emphasis has been very 
naturally placed on the practical and scientific side of 
education. The hustling West has been too busy with 
the pressing problems of developing its great territory 
and amassing wealth to be willing to concern itself 
deeply with the more intellectual and cultural side of 
the higher education. And it has shaped the work 
of its universities accordingly and poured its wealth 
lavishly into their treasuries that these institutions 
might render material aid in the accomplishment of 
this material aim. In the development of the scientific 
and practical side of their work these more modern in- 
stitutions have made wonderful progress and already 
surpass most of their older rivals of the East. 

Function of Eastern Colleges. — The historic in- 
stitutions of the East have pursued a different course 
and have clung steadfastly to a different educational 
ideal. Yielding reluctantly to the public demand, less 
insistent than that in the West, they have broadened 
their curricula to include scientific subjects and a few 
of a purely practical nature. But the intellectual and 
cultural ideal still predominates ; and even the more 
scientific subjects have been made to contribute toward 



16 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

the maintenance of this ideal. The character of the 
individual student, though the emphasis is largely- 
placed on the intellectual side of character, remains 
still the most important factor in the work of the east- 
ern college. And its graduate schools in law, medicine 
and theology are not yet equaled by those of the more 
modern and more wealthy universities of the West. 
The traditional purpose to give the student an ideal 
and to inspire within him the desire to realize that 
ideal in his life may still be said to be the main func- 
tion of the historic eastern institution. 

From what has already been said of the aims and 
ideals of the New England academy it can readily be 
understood why the academy has drawn more closely 
in recent years to the higher institutions of the East. 
Bbth have been inspired largely by the same ideal and 
both have worked with sympathetic cooperation to 
realize it. The academy, too, has added its scientific 
studies and courses to meet the requirements of the 
higher institutions it serves. But like those institutions 
it has striven to make these more modern subjects 
serve the common purpose of developing strong and 
virile character, that shall prompt its possessor to find 
in the opportunities offered by the higher education 
something greater and more noble than the mere train- 
ing for practical efficiency. 

Relation of Academy to Eastern Colleges. — In this 
intimate relation with the college and university the 
academy, because of its independence, occupies a most 
favorable position. While it is influenced by it, it also 
exerts a definite influence upon the higher institution. 
In a sense it contributes valuable assistance to the col- 



THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 17 

lege in standardizing the latter's admission require- 
ments. Its courses are arranged and conducted pri- 
marily to fit its students for college. Unhampered by 
other demands, it is thus enabled to focus its thought 
and effort on this main problem. For this reason it 
can most fully appreciate what the college desires. 
And for this same reason it is frequently able to make 
valuable suggestions to the college as to wise and nec- 
essary modifications in entrance requirements. With 
a long experience on which to base its judgments it 
can offer its advice unprejudiced by a limited equip- 
ment and curriculum or the demands of a local and 
sometimes short-sighted constituency. Its governing 
motive will be rather the limitations, possibilities, and 
hence best interests of the average student mind. In 
this connection it is interesting to note that the acad- 
emy has been most reluctant to adopt the certificate 
plan of admission to college, but has warmly supported 
the system pursued by the leading universities of the 
East requiring regular entrance examinations of all 
candidates for admission. Because of its close and 
friendly relations with the college and its clear ap- 
preciation of the quality of work desired by the latter 
the academy prefers to allow the college to test for it- 
self the quality of the work submitted. 

The Academy as a Finishing School. — During re- 
cent years a significant function of the academy has 
been to offer an increasing number of boys the oppor- 
tunity to complete their preparation for college. The 
majority of our public high schools are fully compe- 
tent to give their students a thorough preparation of 
this kind. In small towns and outlying districts this is 



18 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

not always possible. Boys from these localities then 
frequently find it desirable, if not actually necessary, to 
pass a year or two in schools away from home in 
order to make their entrance to college secure. Fre- 
quently, too, the best of high schools are dominated 
by the influence and requirements of those higher in- 
stitutions that happen to be close at hand and to which 
the majority of candidates regularly apply. For this 
majority the preparation for college may be as thor- 
ough and complete as can be desired. But when, as 
often happens, boys from these schools desire to enter 
other and more remote institutions, they find fre- 
quently enough that their preparation does not meet 
in essential particulars the entrance requirements of 
their chosen college. 

The Academy and Western, Pupils, — This situa- 
tion is most often found in our western and southern 
states when the entrance requirements of the great 
state universities largely, if not wholly, shape the cur- 
ricula of the lower schools. The student who has suc- 
cessfully pursued the courses prescribed for him in 
these schools and who may desire to enter one of our 
eastern colleges or universities is apt to find himself 
in an awkward predicament. Further preparation he 
must secure; and that further preparation he must 
secure either from a private tutor or from some pre- 
paratory school which offers the courses that he needs. 
In his distress he most often turns to an eastern acad- 
emy which is regularly sending its graduates to the 
higher institution of his choice. The increasing de- 
mand for admission to the academy by boys of this 
class has recently prompted the president of one of 



THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 19 

our leading universities of the East to express the opin- 
ion that in his judgment the chief function of the 
academy should be to provide for the needs of this 
particular group. 

Classes from Which the Academy Draws Stu- 
dents. — Not infrequently students in the midst of their 
high-school courses suddenly awaken to the desirability 
of a college education. That there are many cases of 
this kind is clearly evidenced by the increasing de- 
mand of the high school that albof its courses, regard- 
less of their nature, should be accepted by the college 
for admission. That the eastern colleges will yield 
to this demand is not likely. That they can not do so 
without radically changing their character and ideals 
is clear. 

Up to the time of this awakening these students 
have looked upon the general courses of study offered 
by the local school as sufficient for their needs. But 
with the change of objective a complete readjustment 
becomes necessary. Even if his local school offers in 
other courses the special studies he requires to gain 
the desired end, the student is generally unwilling to 
drop back and begin his work again with lower classes. 
Such a step involves what the Chinese would call "loss 
of face." It is a natural feeling ; and many a boy who 
finds himself in this uncomfortable situation prefers 
to make a fresh start in some other school where he 
will be free from conditions that he has come to re- 
gard as real handicaps in his further school work. To 
these boys the academy offers many attractions. 

Still another class from which the academy draws 
each year a few students is made up of those whose 



20 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

parents look upon the academy as a desirable stepping 
stone between the restrictions of home or a home 
school and the freedom of college life. In some cases 
the immaturity of the boy concerned will furnish the 
chief argument in favor of placing him for a year or 
two in a large academy preparatory to his admission 
into the higher institution. Not infrequently the plan 
commends itself through the belief that the academy 
with its larger responsibilities and its emphasis on self- 
reliance and individual initiative will develop in the 
individual those habits of thought and work and con- 
duct, that ability to mingle and hold his own with his 
fellows, so essential to one who is to get the best re- 
sults from his college course. These boys constitute 
something of a problem to the academy. In many 
cases they are distinctly benefited by taking this side 
step, as it were, in their educational life. But with 
the main incentive of completing preparation for col- 
lege removed, some boys, at least, find it difiicult to 
appreciate the value of the extra intellectual opportu- 
nities afforded them. With such, the loss of intel- 
lectual momentum sustained can hardly be offset by 
the other gains acquired. 

Finally, many boys who, for various reasons, are 
unable or unwilling to pursue their education beyond 
the secondary-school stage are convinced that the 
academy offers them special and valuable advantages 
in their preparation for life. If they are not to enjoy 
the opportunities of the higher education they are 
eager to secure something approximating at least these 
opportunities. This the academy supplies. 



THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 21 

Special Attractions of Academy as a Finishing 
School. — In a sense, our largest and oldest academies 
offer to their pupils conditions and opportunities very 
closely paralleling those that characterized our col- 
leges not many years ago. Here one may mingle as in 
college with boys representing almost all the states of 
the union and all classes of society. The sons of 
business and professional men, of artisans and farm- 
ers are here thrown together in intimate and healthful 
contact. The courses of study include many subjects 
found until recently in most of the college curricula. 
Some of them are still parts of the regular college 
courses. The instructors, generally the equals and 
often the superiors of the average college professor, 
here guide and stimulate the students' intellectual life. 
Extra curriculum activities tend to develop the whole 
man. On all sides he is surrounded by conditions that 
tend to broaden his outlook, quicken his mind and test 
and strengthen his moral fiber. Naturally enough then 
many promising boys are led to believe that the acad- 
emy offers peculiar advantages to them in the final 
preparation they are to make for that life-work upon 
which they are so soon to enter. 

From what has been said it is evident that there are 
many classes of boys for whom the academy presents 
special attractions in itself. We shall speak later of 
other conditions which apart from the drawing power 
of the academy lead so many parents to send their boys 
away from home to school. 



CHAPTER IV 

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES 

IN spite of the popularity and rapid growth of the 
public high school there are increasing evidences 
that it is not meeting fully the demands of the Ameri- 
can public in the field of secondary education. No 
clearer evidence exists than that supplied by the advent 
in recent years of the private boarding-school and the 
increasing growth and popularity it has enjoyed. And 
even more recently still a new type of school has ap- 
peared, the country day school, which has sprung at 
once into popular favor and which bids fair to enjoy 
a prosperous future. These schools have arisen and 
spread In response to a definite not an artificial popular 
demand. The reasons for this demand are too many 
and too complicated to discuss here. But such as they 
are they are responsible as well for the increasing pop- 
ularity of our best academies, and many of them will 
become apparent as we consider the advantages and 
disadvantages of the academy itself as a distinctive 
type of American school. It must be borne in mind, 
however, that these same causes are operative as well 
in enlarging that constituency from which the private 
boarding-school and the country day school are draw- 
ing yearly an increasing number of pupils. 

We have seen that the chief purpose of the early 
22 



THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 23 

academy was to develop and mold the character of its 
students. In spite of the conspicuous changes wrought 
by the passing years the academy has never lost sight 
of this ideal. Emphasis is still placed on the develop- 
ment of the all-around man. Some of the influences 
by which this end is attained have already been briefly 
touched upon. A boy is largely molded by the atmos- 
phere, or as we more commonly say, the spirit of the 
school of which he is a member. This spirit is in itself 
intangible; but it is the product of factors that can 
generally be determined and defined. The spirit of the 
academy is the result of those forces and influences 
in the school that make for the all-around develop- 
ment of the individual in mind, soul and body. Some 
of these are the result of definite administrative 
methods and policy ; others owe their origin, or at least 
their effect, to the students themselves. Traditions 
and customs handed down from class to class and 
even from generation to generation exert a definite 
molding influence on the student body as a whole. 
These factors which count so strongly for the broad- 
est development of the individual, are found more 
conspicuously in the academy and the private boarding- 
school than in the public school. And as far as tradi- 
tion and custom are concerned they are most in evi- 
dence in the academy. 

Control of Students' Time. — An institution that is 
able during the school year to control both the time 
and activities of its pupils has of necessity an appre- 
ciable advantage over the day school which controls 
only a portion of the time and, to a limited degree, out- 
side activities as well. The importance of this factor 



24 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR JBOYS 

in educational life has never been more deeply felt 
than at the present day when the multifarious and 
sometimes nefarious demands of social life exert their 
undermining influence on the minds, morals and health 
of our youth. In its fight against these harmful in- 
fluences the public school has a difficult task on its 
hands. When it can not count on the cooperation of 
sensible homes this task is a well-nigh hopeless one. 
Recognizing this fact, an increasing number of parents 
are turning for help to those schools where, during the 
school year at least, such influences are practically 
eliminated. 

Definite restrictions placed upon the entire student 
body are not regarded as a serious hardship by the 
individual. It is only when he is singled out from 
others and forced to yield to restriction that he feels 
humiliated and grows rebellious. Hence when such 
general restrictions exist for all and common demands 
are made upon all, the individual will take up the tasks 
assigned him in a spirit that in itself increases his 
chances of success. This opportunity then to deal 
with the whole boy for the whole day is a most valua- 
ble educational asset. 

Physical Equipment. — The leading academies of 
the present day are provided with material equipment 
unexcelled by the best of our smaller colleges. These 
have their direct and indirect influence on the molding 
of the individual student. Modern recitation buildings 
and well equipped laboratories enable him to do his 
work under helpful conditions. Faculties of generous 
size permit him to do that work in groups small enough 
to insure a liberal amount of personal attention to in- 



THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 25 

dividual needs and yet large enough to retain the ele- 
ment of personal competition so valuable to individual 
development. Dormitory accommodations are sup- 
plied him which are a guarantee that he will be sur- 
rounded in his life and work with living conditions 
making for good health and clear thinking. The pres- 
ence of and intimate relations with the resident in- 
structor limit the chances of misusing time or over- 
reaching the regulations of the school. And modern 
gymnasiums and extensive playing fields provide for 
his physical needs. 

The Value of Age and Tradition. — Unquestionably 
age is an asset of no mean value to an institution of 
learning. A long and illustrious history begets tradi- 
tions and ideals that exert a dominating influence on 
every student body over which they spread their quiet 
spell. The realization that generations of students 
have here come and gone, have here lived and worked 
and have here met and wrestled with the same prob- 
lems that confront him to-day, supplies each student 
with an inspiration that nothing else can give. One 
has only to stand in the classic quadrangles of any of 
the great historic schools of England to appreciate the 
truth of this statement. The very youth of our own 
country precludes the possibility of such a wealth of 
historic tradition as that which surrounds these ancient 
English schools. They measure their history by cen- 
turies; we measure ours by scores of years at best. 
And yet some at least of our academies can boast of 
vigorous life extending well into a second century. 
Dummer Academy, at South Byfield, Massachusetts, 
recently celebrated the one hundred and fiftieth anni- 



26 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

versary of its foundation; and the two Phillips acad- 
emies were conceived and planned by patriots who di- 
vided their time and thought between the demands of 
the institutions they were creating and the great prob- 
lems of state and nation incident to the revolution and 
the establishment of the new republic. What age and 
historic tradition have meant to Oxford and Cam- 
bridge Universities, and such schools as Winchester 
and Eton, in England, age and tradition, in a lesser 
but still deeply significant sense, mean to Harvard and 
Yale Universities and such schools as the Phillips 
academies in America. Rooted deeply in a past of 
which every true American is justly proud, a past 
made glorious by intellectual greatness, spiritual fer- 
vor, and patriotic devotion, these old academies offer 
a special attracti(^n to those who, recognizing the good 
of the present age, still prize the virtues of the age 
that is gone and are glad to come in contact where 
they can with th6 undying spirit of those who made that 
age great. In the possession of this peculiar asset the 
academy has no competitors among the private schools 
and but few among the great public schools of the 
present day. 

The Democracy of the Academy. — In one impor- 
tant respect the academy differs from the private 
boarding-school, and in a way too that makes a special 
appeal to the American heart. I refer to its genuine 
democracy, a democracy which is one of the greatest 
glories of the public school. Not only does the acad- 
emy draw its students from an even wider range of 
territory than does the private school, but, unlike the 
latter, it draws these students from all classes of so- 



THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 27 

ciety. Freed by its endowment from the necessity of 
depending solely on tuition fees for its existence, and, 
in most cases, possessing generous funds for aiding 
deserving students of limited means, it welcomes gladly 
the poor as well as the rich, while it points to a stu- 
dent body composed in the main of boys of average 
means. The value of a truly democratic atmosphere 
of this kind during the formative years of youth can 
not be too strongly emphasized. In itself there is a 
distinct educational value attaching to this opportu- 
nity for a boy to mingle on terms of equality with boys 
of all classes and from all sections of the country 
when such rewards as the school has to offer are be- 
stowed freely on all, the only qualification being that 
the recipient shall have proved his individual merit and 
worth. Sectional as well as class lines are in this way 
obliterated and to the great benefit of all. 

The Independence of the Academy. — Because of 
its unique independent position the endowed academy 
occupies a strong position. Neither personal aims, 
financial considerations or public demands, these last 
so often temporary and unstable, can exert an undue 
influence upon its policy and standards. In this re- 
spect it enjoys a distinct advantage over both the pri- 
vate and the public school. Managed by trustees of 
intelligence and pronounced ability, who give their time 
and best thought to its interests without financial re- 
muneration, it is less likely than its competitors to lose 
sight of the true goal of education. Far better than 
they it can weather the storms of criticism that are 
likely to arise if it refuses to yield to the superficial 
clamor for change and novelty. For the same reason 



28 .TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

it may, and sometimes does, fail to discern at once the 
real and just basis of the public's demands. But in 
education, especially in these days of sudden change 
and multitudinous novelties, conservatism is not to be 
regretted. And since those who guard the academy's 
welfare and plan for her future are practical men of 
affairs as well as men of high intelligence, men who 
have no selfish interests at stake or political ends to 
attain, they are pretty sure in the end to be able to 
feel the public pulse and plan such readjustments as 
may be needed to meet any sound educational demand. 

The Ability of the Academy to Lead. — The obli- 
gations of an educational institution are not limited 
to supplying only that which the public demands, how- 
ever sound such demands may be. It should lead and 
point the way as well. The true function of education 
is often more apparent to those who devote their lives 
to educational work than it is to those who see only 
its temporary and local effects. Too often the public 
vision is limited in range and dimmed by the shadows 
of narrow interests. Here the institution should lead ; 
should indeed educate in the true sense of the word. 
This function is more easily performed by the acad- 
emy than by either the private or the public school. 
For here again the independence of the academy is 
one of its greatest sources of strength. Even at the 
sacrifice of temporary popularity and numerical 
strength it can hold fast to an ideal, make clear to 
others its value, until eventually public vision has been 
clarified and public opinion lifted to a higher level. 

Contrasting Methods of Academy and Other 
Boarding-Schools. — In its natural development the 



THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 29 

academy has followed a somewhat different course 
from that of its nearest competitors, the private school 
and the so-called church school. The latter are fre- 
quently spoken of as "close schools." The term is 
significant. It implies restriction and restraint; and 
these schools place the emphasis on both. On the 
supposition that until he is of college age the boy 
should be shielded and protected the private school 
holds him as far as possible from the temptations that 
beset the pathway of youth and shuts him off from 
contact with conditions and influences which, in indi- 
vidual cases, might strain to the breaking point his de- 
veloping powers of self-control. And while it re- 
strains on the one hand it also surrounds him as best 
it can with influences that shall prove wholesome, up- 
lifting and stimulating. The contact with teachers 
is even closer and more intimate than it is in the acad- 
emy; and there is generally present an atmosphere 
savoring strongly of the home. That conditions such 
as these should make their special appeal to many 
parents is but natural. 

The academy, on the other hand, has developed 
along lines that allow greater freedom to and place 
greater responsibility upon the individual student. As- 
suming that youth of the ages with which it deals must 
begin to test and use their own powers It grants them 
a definite amount of restricted freedom. Dreading 
for its pupils the complete freedom of college life, or 
that of the world of affairs, it seeks gradually to de- 
velop within them the ability to meet successfully the 
peculiar temptations and problems that inevitably ac- 
company this larger freedom. Surrounding its pupils 



30 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

with helpful and inspiring influences it yet grants them 
a reasonable amount of liberty in the use of which 
under wise counsel and guidance they may test and de- 
velop their own strength. This liberty is not so large 
as is generally supposed. Rules and regulations are 
not numerous or petty; but such as they are they are 
rigidly enforced ; and the exacting demands of the class 
room coupled with a carefully planned schedule cover- 
ing the hours of both work and play reduce to a min- 
imum the likelihood of infringement. 

"Do the work assigned you; observe the rules pre- 
scribed for you; or seek some other school." This 
is the general maxim laid down for its pupils by the 
academy; and that this is no idle threat each student 
early comes to realize. "Here is your opportunity," 
says the academy in substance to its pupils, "you may 
reject it if you will ; but we will aid you to the best of 
our ability to accept it. The fruits of learning are 
within your reach ; but you must pick them if they are 
to be of real and permanent value to you in later life. 
We will show you how these fruits may be gathered ; 
but the process itself must be largely yours. Habits 
of work and thought and conduct which shall assure 
sound and stable character may here be developed; 
but such habits, if they are to be truly yours and per- 
manent, must be developed chiefly from within. We 
will help you to develop them ; but we can not impose 
them upon you against your will. Individual initia- 
tive and self-reliance are essential factors in deter- 
mining success in life ; the conditions which surround 
you encourage the development of these necessary 
traits of character. The school community of which 



THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 31 

you are now a part is a small world in itself In which 
you will find, in lesser degree, only the same opportu- 
nities, problems and temptations you must face in 
later life ; we will surround you with helpful and stim- 
ulating conditions ; we will guide, admonish, warn and 
restrain ; you can not plead ignorance of either oppor- 
tunity or danger ; but after all it must be for you to 
determine whether the opportunity shall be accepted 
and the danger avoided. And finally, the character 
which, under these conditions, you develop will be 
permanently yours because it is rooted deep within you 
and has been developed by your own conscious ef- 
fort." 

The Academy's Policy Not Best for All. — Educa- 
tional institutions, like parents, are constantly seeking 
to discover the best methods for training and develop- 
ing youth. And no thoughtful student of this per- 
plexing problem would for a moment claim that any 
one method yet devised is in itself best for all. The 
academy itself makes no such claim. Indeed it frankly 
acknowledges that there are many boys, and girls as 
well, who are not qualified to respond to the reasonable 
freedom which it grants its students. Some of our 
leading academies state clearly in their published cat- 
alogues that they do not desire pupils who still require 
excessive personal oversight or the routine of the 
schoolroom to enforce proper habits of study. Matu- 
rity can not always be measured by age, and hence 
these schools do not attempt to say at what age the 
individual is best fitted to assume the responsibilities 
of academy life. It is clearly recognized that the 
claims of individuals to be qualified to meet the test 



32 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

will be determined by personal character, home train- 
ing and other influential factors. And so it frequently 
happens that boys of thirteen and fourteen will meet 
this test better than will some, at least, of their mates 
of more advanced years. But if the test is not satis- 
factorily met there is little effort made by the academy 
to hold the individual in the school. Other schools are 
better able to give him what he needs; and to other 
schools he is asked to go. 

It is in this connection that the academy is perhaps 
most often and most justly criticized. Many parents 
feel that it is the duty of the school to which they en- 
trust their children to see to it that these children are 
completely shielded, so far as that is ever possible, 
from all those common temptations and dangers which 
ever beset the pathway of youth. And they seem to be- 
lieve further that since the average boy is not by na- 
ture overf ond of study it is the business of the school 
to hold him and struggle with him, for years if neces- 
sary, until he will study. In their judgment it is a 
serious mistake for the school to presume to drop 
such a boy from its number, a mistake calculated to 
place upon the boy an indelible stigma and upon his 
parents unnecessary humiliation if not disgrace. 

Attitude of Parents and Academy Contrasted. — 
As the parent views the problem this is not an unnat- 
ural attitude. From the view-point of the school it is 
not justified. Were the academy the only school, or 
the only type of school to which this pupil who has 
not yet found himself could go, there would be much 
to say in defense of the parents' position. Such, how- 



THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 33 

ever, is not the case. Hundreds of good schools are 
ready and eager to deal with just such boys as these. 
And more often than not the change of school is just 
the one thing most needed to bring the individual to 
appreciate his own shortcomings and to give him that 
fresh impetus necessary to insure ultimate success. 
There can be no permanent stigma then attaching to 
this act. The failure of a pupil at this early stage of 
his development may be due to lack of intellectual 
ability or, more often, to unwillingness or inability to 
use that ability right. Just where the trouble lies can 
not easily be determined in many cases. But if an 
unpleasant truth must be brought home to a boy it is 
far better for him that this should be done in the days 
of his immaturity than later in college or elsewhere 
when habits have been definitely formed and character 
is largely set. From such a shock in those later years 
he may indeed never fully recover. 

And so the academy with its large numbers and in- 
dependence does not hesitate to send many of its pu- 
pils each year to the smaller and closer schools which 
it believes are better suited, for the time at least, to 
the individual needs of those concerned. This fact 
in itself is apt to create the impression that there exists 
in the academy life an abnormal amount of freedom 
and moral laxity. Nothing could be further from the 
truth. Moral weaknesses will exist wherever boys are 
thrown together in large numbers. But the great ma- 
jority of those who are thus dropped from the school 
represent pupils who can not or will not meet the in- 
tellectual tests demanded of them. With the "incor- 



34 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

rigibly vicious," as our early educators termed them, 
the academy, like the best of the private schools, makes 
short work. 

Mature Boys Naturally Prefer Academy. — Under 
such conditions it is natural that the academy should 
appeal perhaps most strongly to the mature and older 
boy. That this is true is evidenced by the average age 
of the graduating classes in our largest academies. 
This average will be found to range from one to one 
and a half years higher than that obtaining in the pri- 
vate schools. The reason mentioned above, however, 
is not the only one to account for this high average. 
The fact that many students enter the academy for the 
last year or two only of the course is an influential 
factor. Still another is found in the circumstance that 
a fair percentage of the student body is made up of 
working boys, boys of limited financial means, who 
somewhat late in life have found it possible for the 
first time to secure an education or have had awakened 
within them the desire to secure one. If these two last 
classes are eliminated the general average will be found 
to be only slightly in excess of the common average 
found in the private school. 

Recent Steps Taken to Attract Younger Boys. — 
In recent years our leading academies have taken steps 
that are already lowering this average. Not only are 
they limiting the number of those admitted for the last 
year only of the course, but they are also providing 
for the youngest boys in the lower classes conditions 
and influences somewhat closely approximating those 
provided by the closer schools for the entire student 
body. Special buildings are now provided with school- 



THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 35 

room facilities for study, with a maximum amount of 
personal supervision and direction and with a very 
definite home atmosphere. As a result increasingly 
large numbers of students are entering these schools 
for the full four-year course. The transition from the 
restrictions of home to the limited freedom of a large 
school is thus more gradually and more safely made. 
The percentage of new boys each year grows corre- 
spondingly smaller; and the larger and more stable 
body of students enlisted for the full school course 
makes for greater solidarity and increasing effective- 
ness in the maintenance of traditions and ideals. These 
modifications have been found necessary to prevent the 
academy from becoming more and more a mere finish- 
ing school. Their justification is clearly evidenced by 
the increasing number of those who seek the advan- 
tages ofifered by this type of school. 

The Public School and Politics. — One of the great- 
est evils that beset our public-school system to-day is 
its close, and so often unfortunate, connection with 
politics. "Keep" or "take the public schools out of 
politics" is the campaign cry of thoughtful and public- 
spirited citizens again and again in municipal cam- 
paigns. This is not a trumped-up rally cry adopted for 
campaign purposes. It voices the sentiments of all hon- 
est and patriotic citizens who place the common wel- 
fare above party aims, and who are unwilling that the 
intellectual and moral welfare of their children should 
become a mere plaything in the hands of unscrupulous 
politicians. And it calls attention as well to one of 
the gravest dangers that threaten our national life. 
For if the education of our children and hence the 



36 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

character of our coming citizens are to be jeopardized 
by the selfish whims of pohtical tricksters or even by 
those of cleaner morals who yet bow to a nefarious 
"spoils system" we may well be anxious as we look 
forward to the future. 

The academy is, fortunately, free from political con- 
trol and political interference. Regardless of politics 
and politicians its courses of study are arranged, its 
instructors engaged and held and its policy determined 
and steadily pursued. 

Value of Independence to Teacher and Pupil. — 
The value of this to teachers and pupils alike can not 
be overestimated. To the teacher it insures perma- 
nency of tenure and freedom from interference so 
long as he does well the work required of him ; and 
it insures for him too that opportunity to lead his own 
individual life, do his own individual thinking and 
grow in his own individual way, as he could not do 
were his position dependent upon the politicians and 
political machines of his immediate locality. Unques- 
tionably he will be a better teacher for this independ- 
ence. And unquestionably too many of the best teach- 
ers prefer the assured stability which an academy 
position offers to the uncertainty which must always 
accompany positions in public schools subject to po- 
litical influence and control. 

Nor is the teacher the only one to profit by this sta- 
bility. For many causes, and not always political ones, 
teachers in the public schools are constantly dropping 
out or changing from school to school. Frequently 
these changes occur during the school year. While, 
therefore, such changes may bring a definite gain or 



THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 37 

promotion to the teachers concerned, they involve a 
real hardship and generally a measurable loss to the 
pupils. The steady intellectual progress that should 
characterize the school life of the student is seriously 
impaired. New methods of work must often be ac- 
cepted, new conditions faced, new points of view de- 
veloped, in a word, fresh starts must be made. Loss 
of time, and what is worse, loss of momentum nat- 
urally result; and such losses are serious. 

Here the academy student has a distinct advantage, 
for the faculty changes during the school days of the 
individual pupil are generally so slight as to be prac- 
tically unappreciable. From an educational standpoint 
permanency of tenure on the part of its teaching force 
is one of the most valuable assets that any institution 
of learning can possess. 

Appeal of Academy to Teachers. — The life of a 
teacher in one of our leading academies does not differ 
greatly from that of a college instructor. Unlike the 
public-school teacher, as we have seen, his position is 
reasonably secure and he may look forward confidently 
to a permanent life-work provided he does not allow 
his own efficiency to become impaired. Nor is he be- 
set with the harassing and petty demands usually made 
upon him in the private school. Duties outside of the 
class room he has, of course, but these duties are not 
generally exacting. He is given the time and the op- 
portunity to grow. Indeed he is definitely encouraged 
to do so in the belief that thereby he will increase his 
own value to the school. Not infrequently teachers 
are encouraged to pass years of study or travel abroad 
and special and generous provision is made by the 



38 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

academy authorities to make this possible for them. 
The broadening of the life and vision of their instruct- 
ors is a definite policy of our best academies. 

This policy is not generally possible in the private 
school where constant and exacting demands are made 
on the teacher's time and thought. The intimate re- 
lations existing between teachers and pupils clearly 
limit the time for and the range of intellectual growth. 
For these reasons the academy can command teachers 
of greater ability and efficiency than can its competi- 
tors. It is not at all uncommon for the best teachers 
in our leading academies to turn deaf ears to calls to 
more lucrative positions in private schools ; and not in- 
frequently these calls are unheeded even when made 
to positions, more distinguished in the public eye, in 
colleges and universities. This is often true in the 
cases of men of pronounced intellectual ability and 
promise ; it is even more true of those who find in the 
teacher's profession an opportunity for real service and 
who enter upon it with something of the spirit of the 
missionary. To men of this latter class it is a self- 
evident truth that youth is primarily the period of 
character building. Youth in school years is far more 
impressionable, more plastic than in the later college 
years. Here then is where example and influence 
count most strongly. And here in consequence is 
where the teacher imbued with the spirit of service 
finds his largest field of usefulness. 

What this means to the academy student can hardly 
be overstated. Youth is distinctly a period of hero 
worship; and the teacher of intellectual power and 
moral worth, of sympathy and tact, frequently be- 



THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 39 

comes for the individual boy a more potent educational 
force than all the other agencies and influences that the 
school supplies. Brought into close and daily contact 
with his pupils he is able to discern their weaknesses 
and to render effective aid in the struggle for mastery 
and strength. Knowing the dangers and pitfalls of 
student life he can warn the unwary and check the 
headstrong. In the class room, and even more per- 
haps outside, he is friend, counselor and guide. And 
by the very joy that he displays in this life of service 
to his fellows he is often able to reveal to his youthful 
admirer a vision of the eternal values of life and an 
appreciation of life's true worth. Many a mature man, 
as memory carries him back to the school days of his 
youth, will recall with gratitude some individual teacher 
who first inspired him with an ideal and helped him 
develop the strength to attain it. 

In the selection of its teachers the academy justly 
exercises the greatest care, clearly recognizing that its 
strength or weakness and ultimately its success or fail- 
ure will be determined very largely by the character 
of its teaching force. 

The Religious Element in the Academy. — No 
thoughtful person can fail to be impressed with and 
to deplore the steady disappearance of the religious 
element from our public schools. Definite religious 
instruction is not permitted. Even the Bible scarcely 
occupies a foothold. From the nature of conditions 
that confront us in America to-day this situation is 
perhaps necessary. It is doubtful whether it can be 
helpfully altered. But hovv^ever much one may rec- 
ognize the necessity of such a state of affairs no one 



40 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

of religious conviction and prophetic foresight can 
peer ahead into the future without serious misgiv- 
ing. Many indeed are disposed to admit that even in 
this day and generation we are beholding in the grow- 
ing superficiality, lack of reverence and absence of 
ideals among our youth the sure effects of this policy. 

In the academy moral and religious training have 
never been fully separated. The religious fervor of 
the founders finds its modern expression in the 
agencies employed to inculcate religious truth and to 
awaken religious zeal. The academy authorities 
frankly recognize this as one of the greatest obliga- 
tions that rest upon them. In this respect the posi- 
tion of the academy differs little from that of the best 
of the private schools. 

Naturally the methods employed to emphasize the 
religious element will vary according to the character 
of the individual institution concerned. The secta- 
rian academy provides for this important element in 
the life of its pupils in a way best suited to the peculiar 
tenets of the denomination it represents. Those that 
are non-sectarian, and such are the largest, follow 
broader but no less definite policies. In many the 
study of the Bible finds a regular place in the school 
curriculum. In all, religious influences are freely 
thrown about the pupils and religious truths are con- 
stantly expounded. Prominent clergymen fill in turn 
the chapel pulpit. Church attendance is required. The 
daily morning chapel service gives a religious impetus 
to the day's work and play. The Christian Association 
and other voluntary religious organizations of the stu- 



THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 41 

dents themselves stimulate and strengthen the general 
religious life. Voluntary classes for Bible study and 
the discussion of life problems exert their helpful re- 
ligious influence. And practical religion is more and 
more widely revealed in the increasing number of boys 
who, during their school days, minister to the needs of 
those less favored than themselves. This emphasis 
which the academy thus places so definitely on religion 
awakens a ready response in the hearts of many Ameri- 
can parents. 

Value of Routine.— One of the chief functions of 
the preparatory school must always be to develop 
among its pupils systematic habits of work and thought. 
It is recognized by all that the individual subjects 
taught may be of little if any use to the pupil in later 
life. Many of these are necessary foundations for 
more advanced and specialized work still to be pur- 
sued. A few may have an immediate and practical 
value. Some, however, are sure to be early discarded 
and largely forgotten. But in all of these the oppor- 
tunity is presented of inculcating systematic habits of 
thought and methods of work; and without these no 
boy can hope to attain success in any line of endeavor. 
A common aim and a fixed and steady daily routine 
for all will do more to develop such habits than will 
almost any other agency that can be employed. A 
boy easily falls into the current about him, and when 
that current flows steadily and strongly toward a 
definite outlet he is carried along in spite of him- 
self. Nor is the gain from this purely intellectual; 
it is even more a moral one. Because of its traditions. 



42 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

its singleness of aim and its freedom from political and 
financial interference, the academy supplies such a cur- 
rent as this in a unique degree. 

Methods of Caring for Physical Needs of Pupils. 
— In these days the physical development of our youth 
claims the serious attention of educators not only in 
the preparatory schools but in our higher institutions 
as well. The present craze for athletics is sure to lead 
every boy of athletic ability to secure all, if not more 
than all, the healthful physical exercise that the wel- 
fare of his body demands. With him the obligation 
of the school is not to encourage but to curb, a diffi- 
cult task at best, but especially difficult for the public 
school. 

But the bulk of the student body requires different 
treatment. The youths who most easily neglect physical 
exercise are generally those who most need it. These 
boys must be encouraged, or better, required to take 
exercise regularly and along those lines best suited to 
their needs. While this truth is generally recognized, 
the academies, with a few of the leading private 
schools, have earliest and best given it practical appli- 
cation. This they have been able to do chiefly because 
of their superior material equipment and their full 
control of the pupils' time. 

The department of physical education in the acad- 
emy is in charge of a trained expert. Frequently this 
man has had the advantage of a medical training as 
well. Not only does he supervise and direct the ath- 
letic activities of the school, but upon him rests the 
oversight of the health and special physical needs of 
the individual student. As he deals with youth at the 



THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 43 

period of most rapid growth and pronounced physical 
change his work is of the greatest importance to the 
school. To aid him in his labors he is supplied with 
an equipment and facilities rarely surpassed even in 
the colleges. An up-to-date gymnasium equipped with 
modern apparatus provides for the needs of the stu- 
dent body during the winter months, and, indeed, 
throughout the year for that smaller group which re- 
quires special attention and direction in the proper de- 
velopment of their bodies. Numerous and extensive 
playing fields are available for the use of the student 
body as a whole, and the student body is required to 
make use of them under definite restrictions as to the 
character of the exercise and the amount of time con- 
sumed. 

A significant and most interesting development in 
modern school life is found in a growing tendency to 
pull down from his flimsy pedestal the artificial athletic 
"hero," to force the retiring book-worm to get out into 
the open and develop a sound body, and to bring both 
to realize that normal, healthful athletic activity is 
the duty and privilege of all. Under such conditions 
a generous athletic equipment becomes of immense 
value not only in contributing to the building of sound 
bodies and the safeguarding of health, but in refresh- 
ing and quickening the intellect and in developing those 
qualities of mind and body that make for rugged moral 
strength. The fact that athletics is regarded as a nor- 
mal and necessary part of the school regime tends 
strongly to check distorted student opinion and to in- 
crease in the general life of the institution itself the 
value of this essential factor in modern education. 



CHAPTER V 

THE FUTURE OF THE ACADEMY 

A STUDY of the history of education in this and 
other lands prompts one to be cautious in at- 
tempting to make predictions for the future. Espe- 
cially is this true with relation to the United States, 
a country so unique, composed of such diverse ele- 
ments and still so definitely in the process of growth 
and expansion. At present we differ from most of the 
older countries of Europe in having no definite scheme 
of education of which our numerous types of institu- 
tions are working parts. We are still feeling our way, 
as it were, toward a definite educational process and a 
definite educational goal. The demands of yesterday 
are not those that press most heavily to-day; and it 
is not likely that those of to-day will fully satisfy the 
public of to-morrow. Changes and readjustments will 
continue for some time at least and our numerous in- 
stitutions of learning must be prepared to adapt them- 
selves to such changes as give clear evidence of per- 
manency and worth if they are not to be supplanted by 
others. We can prophesy of the future only on the 
basis of past and present development and tendencies. 
On this basis some things seem fairly clear; others 
must of necessity remain largely uncertain. Only 
within these proper limitations are we justified in 

44 



THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 45 

attempting to predict what is to be the future of the 
American academy. And this discussion will be limited 
to that type of academy which has claimed our special 
attention thus far. 

The steady and wholesome growth of our best acad- 
emies in recent years holds out distinct promise for 
the future. Conditions which have led an increasing 
number of our American youth to seek the^ advantages 
of boarding-schools seem not destined to disappear. 
Rather are they likely to become more wide-spread 
and more active. With the passing years, therefore, 
it is fair to prophesy that the number of prospective 
pupils from whom the academy draws its students will 
steadily increase. A reaction in favor of country life 
is not likely seriously to curtail the size of our large 
cities. Nor is it probable that within these cities 
themselves the old-fashioned home will grow into 
greater prominence. The distractions of city life will 
remain ; and so long as they remain the stimulating in- 
tellectual and moral atmosphere so definitely necessary 
in school days can not well exist. The great public 
schools will find it increasingly difficult to satisfy the 
multifarious demands made upon them. More and 
more they must yield to the public demand and shape 
their courses to meet the popular will. As the great 
"melting pot" in American life they must continue to 
make and shape the citizenship of our country. More 
and more they must heed the demands for education 
that will enable their pupils, not later than the close 
of their high-school course, to enter at once upon some 
chosen life-work. Practical and vocational studies are 
sure to occupy an increasing space in the curriculum 



46 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

of the public high school. And with this development 
those who are aiming for college and the higher edu- 
cation will be driven more and more to seek their prep- 
aration at the boarding-school. 

Nor does it seem likely that future conditions and 
developments will bring back into the public high school 
an increasing number of men teachers. The trend is still 
the other way. Even in the matter of principalships 
women are in places supplanting men. Whether these 
women will prove as efficient as their predecessors in 
office is a debatable question. Whether they will im- 
prove or deteriorate in quality with the passing years 
can not be foretold. At present it would seem that not 
only are women rapidly supplanting men as teachers, 
but that in increasing number those of comparative 
youth and immaturity are filling the teachers' chairs. 
Those parents who find in such conditions a definite 
objection to placing their children in the public high 
school will, more than formerly, turn to the boarding- 
school for the conditions they desire. 

The millennium is still too far away to justify the 
hope that a more definite religious note will soon be 
struck in the education supplied by the public high 
school. The present tendency is otherwise. And even 
if there should come a reaction in favor of a more 
definite religious note in our public-school teaching it 
is difficult to comprehend what kind of religious teach- 
ing could be provided to meet satisfactorily conditions 
that must be faced. Sectarian schools supported by 
public money are not in keeping with our American 
traditions or ideals. Unless we are blind we are not 
likely to accept such a solution as this. And yet since 



THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 47 

we feel so strongly on this subject we are compelled 
so definitely to limit religious instruction in the public 
schools or so to broaden it that the real religious ele- 
ment if not actually concealed is likely to lose its in- 
spiration and its strength. For those who still hold 
fast to the importance of the religious element in edu- 
cation the boarding-school will continue to make a 
strong appeal. 

Effect on Academy of Development of Higher In- 
stitutions. — The development of our higher institu- 
tions of learning is sure to exert a definite influence on 
the preparatory school. Universities are growing 
yearly in size and scope : colleges are not only increas- 
ing in size but are incorporating many of the univer- 
sity methods and ideals; and the scientific and tech- 
nical schools have always been disposed to place the 
emphasis almost wholly on the work of the curriculum 
and to the exclusion of other influences and interests. 
In this general scheme of development common to all, 
the tendency is clearly to place the emphasis with in- 
creasing definiteness on the intellectual side of student 
life. Moral training and influence will become less 
pronounced with the passing years ; and such moral in- 
fluences as exist will be left more and more in the 
hands of the student body to create, develop and con- 
trol. Already there is a growing conviction among 
college men that many of the most valuable fea- 
tures of the college life of their day are passing away. 
Conditions and influences which, including both the 
intellectual and moral elements, laid stress on the de- 
velopment of well-rounded character are no longer so 
pronounced in college life as they were not many years 



48 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

ago. And to those who beheve, as many do, that these 
factors are essential in true education, not the college 
but the academy seems destined best to supply them. 
The academy seems likely, therefore, to fulfill in com- 
ing years one important function of the college of our 
fathers. 

From present tendencies in our American life it 
would seem to be evident that the boarding-school, be 
that school academy, church school, or private school, 
is destined to play an increasingly important part in 
the field of our secondary education. Not only will it 
draw on a larger constituency, but it will add to its 
own attractiveness and efiiciency from year to year 
and on its own merit alone offer a stronger appeal to 
American youth. Age, prestige and enlarged resources 
will all contribute to this end. And the academy will 
be perhaps the greatest gainer. 

So long as this nation remains a republic and so long 
as democracy in its best sense remains a cherished ideal 
of the American people the academy will make its 
special appeal to the American heart. In an address 
delivered recently at the exercises of Founders' Day 
at one of our oldest New England academies, a dis- 
tinguished speaker made this significant statement as 
to the function and place in our American educational 
life of the academy : 

"For one hundred and thirty-five years this academy 
has been a potent force toward union in this country. 
Gathering its sons from every state and territory, it 
has increasingly taught them the lesson of the essential 
oneness of American life and the lesson of mutual re- 
spect and sympathy owed by all Americans to each 



THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 49 

other. The need of such teaching has by no means 
passed. Although time and modern invention and the 
civil war have removed many of the dangers of dis- 
union which threatened our country in the days of the 
founders, the need of the centralizing forces of mutual 
understanding and good will toward all parts of our 
now enormous country remains ever pressing. In these 
days when educational institutions are growing so fast 
throughout the land, it must be remembered that no 
local high school, however good, and no state univer- 
sity, however effective, can take the place of an acad- 
emy which, by history and tradition, serves all states 
and all districts alike." 

We would do well not to ignore the significance of 
this phase of democracy. And when there is added to 
it, as there is in the life of the academy, conditions 
which make it possible, as in our public schools, for 
rich boys and poor boys and boys of average means 
to meet and compete on terms of real equality we have 
a democracy in its finest sense, a democracy that ap- 
peals to the American heart. The tendencies in our 
American life to-day give clear indication that a school 
which insists on maintaining in its life and opportunity 
the traditional democracy, so highly prized by the 
American people, will meet in the years to come an 
increasing need and exercise an increasing influence 
for good in the life of this republic. 



Military Schools in America 

By L. R. Gignilliat 



Military Schools in America 

CHAPTER I 

ORIGIN AND CLASSIFICATION 

ILITARY training as an adjunct to education 
is no modern thing. The greatest civilization 
the world has ever known, that of the ancient Greeks, 
was attained by a system of education under which 
every boy for at least two years of his life was given 
a course practically identical with that of our best mili- 
tary schools of to-day. This training was given him 
not merely that he might be versed in the art of war, 
but that he might acquire the disciplined will, the 
power of endurance, the sturdy physique and the moral 
qualities of loyalty, devotion to duty and self-sacrifice 
that become the citizen no less than the soldier. 

Influence of West Point. — In this country our first 
military school was naturally an expression of our 
military rather than our educational needs. Washing- 
ton, obliged to look to Europe for the skill in mili- 
tary engineering required in our war for independence, 
felt very keenly the need for a national military acad- 
emy, and in a message to Congress strongly advocated 
the establishment of such a school. Due primarily to 
his influence, the United States Military Academy was 

53 



54 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

founded at West Point in 1802. West Point not only- 
supplied the needed instruction for officers, but also 
demonstrated that military training, when coupled 
with education, possessed some distinct advantages 
over the civilian school in the discipline of the moral 
character and the bodily development of the boy. 
Hence West Point has become the inspiration in the 
United States for many schools that have used the 
military system primarily to train young men for well- 
rounded citizenship. 

The First Private Military Schools. — The first 
private military school in America was founded by 
Captain Alden M. Partridge in 1820. It was known 
as the American Literary, Scientific and Military 
Academy, and is now Norwich University. Captain 
Partridge was a professor at West Point from 1806 
to 1815, acting superintendent the greater part of the 
time from 1808 to 1815, and superintendent from 1815 
to 1816. 

It is fair to assume that even in those initial years of 
the national military academy before its present ideals 
and methods were evolved he saw to his satisfaction 
the benefit that boys destined for civil life might also 
derive from military training. 

Later private military schools are indebted to him for 
"demonstrating beyond cavil that military exercises 
and duties are not inconsistent with ardent devotion 
and the highest attainments in literary and scientific 
studies."* 

In 1838 another military school for civilians came 
into existence, a school destined to achieve fame as 

^Military Systems and Education, Barnard. 



i 



MILITARY SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 55 

the West Point of the Confederacy. In that year the 
Virginia MiHtary Institute opened its gates to boys of 
the Old Dominion under the superintendency of Colo- 
nel Francis M. Smith, a graduate of West Point. This 
institution was conducted from the start on the West 
Point plan. It demonstrated the thoroughness of its 
military training by furnishing to the Confederate 
army one-tenth of all of its officers. 

Colonel Sylvanus M. Thayer, superintendent of 
West Point from 1816 to 1831, is perhaps more than 
any other man responsible for that blending of mili- 
tary, intellectual and moral training that has enabled 
the graduates of West Point to achieve distinction in 
civil no less than in military pursuits. To him, there- 
fore, as well as to the military-school founders already 
mentioned, those schools that look to West Point for 
methods and ideals are indebted. 

Aid from the National Governtnent. — The na- 
tional government has for a number of years encour- 
aged military training in educational institutions by 
detailing officers of the army as professors of mili- 
tary science and by issuing arms and equipment to 
schools and colleges that met certain stipulated con- 
ditions and requirements. Except from the essen- 
tially military schools, however, where students are in 
attendance especially for the benefits of such training, 
the government in the past has not realized very sat- 
isfactory returns from its investment. 

In the Land Grant colleges which are required by 
law to afiford military training, faculties as a rule were 
unfavorable to this form of instruction, regarding it 
as a waste of time. As would be expected under such 



56 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

circumstances, the training was perfunctorily given. 
The students got excused from it if they could do so 
by hook or crook, and failing to get excused, entered 
into the drills so half-heartedly that they gained little 
or nothing from them. 

Military Spirit Fostered.— Thus during the many 
years that interest in military matters has been at such 
low ebb in America, a few essentially military schools 
have been practically the only agency outside of West 
Point that has kept alive the spirit of the soldier among 
the youth of the country. Just now of course there is 
a great revival of military interest throughout the na- 
tion. Under the stimulus of the legislation creating 
the new Reserve Officers' Training Corps, the Land 
Grant colleges are taking steps to put their military 
courses on a par of efficiency with other departments. 
Universities that have not heretofore given military 
training are introducing it, and many high schools 
throughout the country are forming cadet corps. The 
coordination of military training with education, how- 
ever, is an art in itself. It can not be acquired over- 
night. 

Advantages of the Essentially Military Schools. — 
The essentially military school that has behind it many 
years of experience and tradition in applying the sol- 
dier's training to the schoolboy therefore finds itself 
to-day occupying in the military educational field the 
advantageous position of a veteran among raw re- 
cruits, able to conduct with confidence and assurance 
a form of training that must necessarily be for some 
years in the experimental stage in most institutions. 

The essentially military school also possesses a very 



MILITARY SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 57 

great advantage over other institutions with military 
departments in the fact that students of the former 
are under mihtary discipline twenty-four hours out of 
the twenty-four. Military training that is limited to a 
few hours of drill per week is beneficial to a certain 
extent if thoroughly given under an experienced man, 
but it can not result in that ingrained subconscious 
discipline of mind and body that comes from the con- 
stant observance of the soldier's attitude toward duty, 
not only on the drill field, but in the class room, in the 
dormitory, at mess and on the playground. 

Classification of Military Schools and Colleges.-— 
Recognizing the differences in the extent and scope of 
the military training that it is possible to give in the 
various types of institutions, the government has estab- 
lished the following classification : 

Class MC. — Comprises colleges and universities 
which confer a degree and which are essentially mili- 
tary in character. By "essentially military" is meant 
that the students are quartered in barracks and are 
constantly in uniform and under discipline. 

Class C. — Includes colleges and universities not es- 
sentially military, that is, in which the military instruc- 
tion is confined to a few drills and lectures per week, 
the students appearing in uniform and being under 
military discipline only at such times. 

Class M. — Designates the institutions of the pre- 
paratory class which do not confer degrees, but which, 
like Class MC, are essentially military in character. 

Class SM. — Comprehends all institutions which af- 
ford military instruction and which are not included 
in the first three classes. 



58 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

For example, such institutions as the Virginia Mili- 
tary Institute and Norwich University, which confer 
degrees and at the same time maintain their students 
constantly under military discipline, fall in Class MC. 

Yale, Cornell, Wisconsin and other colleges which 
afford military training to certain of their students, 
but which are not essentially military in organization, 
fall in Class C. 

St. John's (Manlius), Culver Military Academy and 
similar institutions which are preparatory schools with 
their students living in barracks and under a continu- 
ous military regime, fall in Class M. 

The high schools, which are not military in organi- 
zation, but which include military drill in the high- 
school curriculum, fall in Class SM. 

The Type of School Under Discussion. — The mili- 
tary schools with which this discussion is chiefly con- 
cerned fall in Class M. The private schools have 
adopted the military training of their own choice, be- 
lieving it to be a valuable educational instrument. 

They recognize that the average American boy, while 
generally intelligent, fearless and self-reliant, is at the 
same time impatient of restraint, undisciplined and 
lacking in symmetrical physical development. Their 
experience has indicated that these defects are best 
remedied by military training with its exactness 
and its precision, its rigid adherence to system and 
to discipline and its enforced exercise and regularity 
of Hfe. 

Present Value to Government o£ Military Train- 
ing in Schools. — While these schools utilize military 
instruction as a means to an end and not as an end in 



MILITARY SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 59 

itself, they, like the essentially military colleges, turn 
out some hundreds of young men annually who are 
thoroughly disciplined and well instructed in the care 
and handling of troops. These men would, in the event 
of war, prove competent officers of volunteers. 

Even in colleges and schools in which the military 
course is most limited a large number of young men 
receive each year at least a general idea of drill, dis- 
cipline and the art of war. 

When one considers the deplorable consequences 
that have resulted in some of our past wars from send- 
ing soldiers into the field under officers who knew lit- 
tle or nothing about caring for their men and who were 
without knowledge of even the elementary principles 
of handling troops, there is little surprise that the gov- 
ernment is willing to encourage military training in 
these schools and colleges. 

Distinguished Colleges and Honor Schools. — The 
government gives this encouragement not only through 
the detail of officers and the issue of arms, but also by 
introducing a spirit of emulation. Each year it sends 
to schools receiving aid from the government, officers 
of the general staff, who make a most thorough inspec- 
tion. These officers note carefully the standard of 
discipline and the proficiency exhibited by the students 
of the various institutions in their military training. 
As a result of this inspection the ten essentially mili- 
tary colleges that have exhibited the highest degree 
of excellence in their military departments are des- 
ignated by the secretary of war as "distinguished in- 
stitutions," and similarly, ten essentially military 
schools are designated as "honor schools." 



60 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

Commission in the Regular Army for Honor 
Graduates. — Naturally this honor is highly prized. It 
carries with it not only prestige for the institution, but 
also the privilege of naming a graduate for commission 
as a second lieutenant in the regular army. The gradu- 
ate so designated for the distinguished college may be 
commissioned by the president without mental exam- 
inations. The graduate of the honor school is not so 
favored but is given precedence over other candidates 
who take the examination for promotion if he makes 
a grade of eighty-five per cent, or above. Further- 
more, by a recent Act of Congress, a certain number of 
appointments to West Point are allotted annually to 
selected graduates of honor schools. 

The honor of being in the distinguished or honor 
class is perhaps not quite so coveted as in earlier years 
when the number receiving this designation was com- 
paratively small. Beginning in 1904, the number was 
limited to six; in 1908, it was increased to eight; in 
1909, to ten, and finally in 1914, to twenty. Prior to 
1914 the selection was made from schools and colleges 
without discrimination and those selected were all 
designated as "distinguished institutions."* 



_ * Schools and colleges designated as "Distinguished Institu- 
tions" when number so designated annually was limited to 
six : Culver Military Academy, 1906, 1907 ; Pennsylvania Mili- 
tary College, 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907; St. John's College (An- 
napolis), 1905; St. John's School (Manlius), 1904, 1905, 1906, 
1907 ; Shattuck School, 1904, 1906, 1907 ; South Carolina Mili- 
tary Academy (The Citadel), 1904, 1905; Virginia Military 
Institute, 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907. 

Schools and colleges which have received the designation 
of "Distinguished Institution" three or more times prior to 
1914: Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, 1910, 
1911, 1912, 1913; Culver Military Academy, 1906, 1907, 1908, 



MILITARY SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 61 

The Reserve Officers' Training Corps.-— The most 
recent and interesting development of military training 
in civil institutions is the Reserve Officers' Training 
Corps authorized by the Act of Congress, approved 
June 3, 1916. 

Under this act the government seeks to train reserve 
officers of the army in schools and colleges affording 
military courses. 

Senior units are authorized in higher institutions 
conferring a degree, also in those essentially military 
schools which do not confer degrees but which have 
been designated as "honor" schools for three preceding 
years, or for the last two consecutive years and on one 
previous year, provided further that the school so 
designated shall have enrolled not less than one hun- 
dred students over sixteen years of age. 

Junior units are authorized in secondary schools to 
which officers of the army are detailed and which 
maintain in uniform and under military instruction not 
less than one hundred physically fit male pupils of 
fourteen or more years of age. 

Members of the junior units assume no obligation 

1909, 1910, 1911, 1912, 1913; New Mexico Military Institute, 
1909, 1910, 1911, 1912, 1913; Norwich University, 1904, 1905, 

1906, 1907, 1908, 1909, 1910, 1912, 1913; Pennsylvania Military 
College, 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1908, 1909, 1910, 1911, 1912, 
1913; St. John's College (Annapolis), 1904, 1905, 1909, 1910, 
1913; St. John's Military Academy (Delafield), 1911, 1912, 
1913; St. John's School (Manlius), 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907, 

1908, 1909, 1910, 1911, 1912, 1913; Shattuck School, 1904, 1906, 

1907, 1908, 1909, 1912, 1913; The Citadel (South Carolina 
Military Academy), 1904, 1905, 1908, 1909, 1910, 1911, 1912, 
1913; Virginia Military Institute, 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1908, 

1909, 1910, 1911, 1912, 1913. 

These schools are arranged alphabetically by the War De- 
partment. No statement is made of their relative merit. 



62 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

to the government beyond that of pursuing the pre- 
scribed course of study while in school. Members of 
the senior units, who elect to continue the course dur- 
ing the last two years of the four prescribed for the 
senior course, obligate themselves to attend at least 
two summer camps. 

On graduation the members of the senior unit may 
be commissioned by the president as reserve officers 
for a period of ten years, and as temporary second 
lieutenants of the regular army for a period of six 
months. 

Members of the junior unit receive certain credits 
for their military work if they join senior units in 
higher institutions of learning. 

Provision is made to furnish members of both senior 
and junior units with uniforms and for the payment of 
commutation of subsistence amounting to about nine 
dollars per month to members of the senior units who 
elect the advanced course. The theoretical and prac- 
tical work prescribed by the government for units of 
the Reserve Officers' Training Corps is the same for 
both the essentially military institutions and for those 
that do not maintain their students constantly under 
military discipline. The essentially military institu- 
tions, however, will be able to approximate much more 
closely the West Point standard in the training of 
reserve officers. 

Explicit information as to the conditions under 
which educational institutions may qualify for units 
of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps and the steps 
necessary to secure government assistance in the form 



MILITARY SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 63 

of arms, equipment and military instructors is fully- 
set forth in circulars obtainable from the Adjutant 
General of the Army, Washington, D. C. 



CHAPTER II 

THE DAILY LIFE OF THE CADET IN THE STRICTLY MILI- 
TARY SCHOOL 

THE daily routine of the cadet may not be fully 
understood without some preliminary reference 
to the organization of the school. When the new cadet 
reports for duty he is assigned to a company composed 
of from fifty to eighty cadets. He takes his place in 
the company whenever it is formed for drill, or for 
other purposes. He finds that he is one of a sub- 
division of seven men and a corporal, known as a 
squad, and that he is under the immediate direction of 
this corporal. He finds further that his mistakes are 
corrected by other cadets who stand behind the com- 
pany in what is called the file closers. These are cadet 
officers and non-commissioned officers, who have been 
in the school one or more years, and who have shown 
ability to command and especial aptitude for military 
instruction. The new cadet discovers also that if he is 
late or absent he is reported by the first sergeant, also 
a cadet who either calls the roll or receives reports 
from the corporal in charge of each squad. He learns 
that the cadet captain takes direct command of the 
company, but that there is also attached to it in an ad- 
visory capacity a member of the faculty known as the 
tactical officer. This officer inspects the company occa- 

64 



MILITARY SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 65 

sionally, but the cadet captain inspects it at every 
formation to see that all cadets are neat and well- 
groomed. 

As soon as the new cadet begins to get the spirit of 
things he finds himself believing very firmly that his 
own company is the best of the two to six companies 
which form the cadet battalion. He becomes inspirited 
with the zeal to keep it so and tries to express this in 
his efforts at drill and perhaps also by going out for 
the company teams in athletics. It will probably not be 
very long before he has some aspirations to become 
one of those vv^ho are doing the correcting in the com- 
pany rather than to remain one of the corrected. If 
the new cadet has distinct musical ability he may, after 
learning the rudiments of the drill, obtain an assign- 
ment to the band. For the greater part of the year the 
band practises during the period that the companies 
are at drill. 

Together with his assignment to the company the 
new cadet receives his assignment to his dormitory, 
which in the military school is designated as a barrack. 
His room, which he shares with another cadet of about 
his own age, he finds is in a "division" of barracks and 
that this division, like the company, is under the com- 
mand of a cadet officer. An officer of the faculty, how- 
ever, is also quartered in each hall of the barracks and 
gives it his supervision. 

His First Days at the School. — The new cadet's 
first day at the school is ordinarily quite fully occupied 
in receiving these assignments and undergoing a 
thorough medical examination at the hands of the sur- 
geon and a series of strength tests and measurements 



66 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

given by the physical director. During the latter his 
manner of standing, the way he carries his shoulders 
and head are carefully noted and special remedial work 
is prescribed if necessary. 

Learning to be a soldier while in citizen's clothes is 
rather a depressing thing. At Culver, therefore, the 
new cadet is immediately provided with a ready-made 
uniform pending the completion of his made-to-meas- 
ure outfit, measurements for which are taken after he 
has acquired his "set-up." 

Another thing that has been found desirable at Cul- 
ver is to have the new cadets and a few selected drill 
masters report a week in advance of the old cadets. 
This week is devoted to military instruction, to the 
study of the regulations and to putting the new cadet 
"on to the ropes" so that his greenness and awkward- 
ness have been largely overcome before the remainder 
of the battalion reports for duty. This preliminary 
week also affords the opportunity for a series of tests 
of the new cadet's mental aptitude and for his very 
careful academic classification before studies actually 
begin. 

Beginning the Regular Routine. — The second 
week, therefore, finds him prepared to take up the full 
daily routine of military-school life. This is very sys- 
tematically laid out. The essentially military school is 
a firm believer in the theory that better results can be 
obtained with a boy by plenty of wholesome occupation 
than by excessive admonition. He is kept constantly 
occupied, be it at study, drill or play, from the first 
bugle in the morning until taps at night. 



MILITARY SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 67 

As a result of his busy day he goes to bed healthfully 
tired at night. 

His Hour of Rising. — The early to bed and early 
to rise precept is rigidly enforced in the cadet's life. 
He is awakened each morning at six by the peremptory 
boom of the cannon and the penetrating notes of the 
trumpet. In this military method of waking people 
up he finds little to encourage a second nap. He is sel- 
dom known to treat it as most boys do the maternal 
summons when at home. In ten minutes he is in his 
place on the company formation ground engaged in 
filling his lungs with the fresh morning air in response 
to his captain's commands of "Inhale ! Exhale !" or in 
circling his arms or bending his legs in the gyrations 
of the setting-up drill. With this limbering up he will 
find it easier during the remainder of the day to walk 
and sit and stand as a soldier should, and in the course 
of time an erect carriage will become as natural to him 
as slouching is to the average boy. 

Taking Care of His Room. — After ten minutes of 
exercising he returns to his room, puts his own effects 
in order and makes up his bed. This is a part of the 
plan of teaching him to be systematic and orderly. 
Luxuries have no place in the cadet barrack ; the rooms 
are comfortable enough but simple to a degree. When 
the cadet finds that he must do his own tidying up the 
simplicity of the furnishings appeals to him as emi- 
nently sensible. If he is "orderly" he is responsible 
not only for his own things, but must also sweep the 
room. He .relinquishes this duty with no great un- 
willingness to his roommate on alternate weeks. 



68 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

He finds also that as orderly he is for the time be- 
ing in immediate command of the fourteen by fourteen 
square feet in which he lives and must enforce the reg- 
ulations therein. If anything goes wrong within that 
space he is held accountable, and even though he is not 
himself the offender, he is required to place the re- 
sponsibility. That is not so hard as it may seem, for 
if some other cadet is responsible he is not in fairness 
going to let the orderly suffer. The idea of personal 
responsibility together with the principle of exercising 
command is thus inculcated from the very beginning. 
In fact, things are so organized in the military school 
that responsibility may be immediately and definitely 
placed for anything that may occur at any time or 
place. 

When the inspection call sounds, the cadet, having 
straightened up his room and completed his toilet, 
stands at attention in front of his bed. The cadet hall 
officer, accompanied once a week by the tactical offi- 
cer in charge of the division, enters the room, looks as 
searchingly for dust as if it were something he had lost, 
glances around to see that everything is in its place and 
passes briskly on to the other rooms in the division. 

This cadet, having been tried in the fire of several 
years' military service and his military mettle having 
been assayed to the satisfaction of the authorities, has 
been advanced from the limited sphere of commanding 
a single room on alternate weeks to full responsibility 
for a whole hall. 

The Cadet at Mess.— As a result of the busy hour 
following reveille the cadet is quite ready for breakfast 
at seven. Mess call means that the meal is ready; 



MILITARY SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 69 

there is no such thing as stragghng in five or ten min- 
utes late. He forms and marches to mess with his 
company. On marching into the mess hall he goes to 
his table and stands until grace is asked, taking his 
seat at command. 

Each mess consists of about ten cadets with a cadet 
officer at its head who is responsible for the mainte- 
nance of good order and the observance of correct table 
manners. 

At mess there is no restriction to conversation, nor 
do the cadets seem particularly constrained by the fact 
that they must sit erect, keeping away from the backs 
of their chairs. Ordinarily there are so many different 
sections of the country represented at each mess that 
discussion of school matters and athletics are to some 
extent interspersed with more broadening exchanges 
of information. 

The abundant and regular exercise gives the cadet an 
unusual appetite even for a boy. At Culver we have 
considered his proper subsistence a very important fac- 
tor in his health and development. We furnish him a 
simple but most carefully balanced menu prepared in 
scrupulously clean tile-lined kitchens and appetizingly 
served in a very beautiful mess hall. The cadet's hap- 
piness and efficiency are both considerably enhanced by 
these special provisions. 

Study Hours and Classes. — The cadet's academic 
day begins very shortly after breakfast. He carries 
quite as many studies as the boy in a civilian school and 
perhaps goes at them with a clearer head by reason of 
his daily exercise and regular hours. 

Call to quarters is sounded by the trumpeter about 



70 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

fifteen minutes after breakfast is over. If the cadet 
has no recitation the first period he goes to his room 
for study. No visiting between rooms is allowed dur- 
ing call to quarters and everything must be very quiet. 
Occasionally an officer passes through the barracks on 
inspection. A glass panel enables him to see whether 
or not cadets are studying (without disturbing them by 
opening the door). 

If the cadet has a recitation he goes to the courtyard 
and forms with his class. The ranking cadet, or in 
some schools the cadet who stands highest in the class, 
calls the roll and reports absentees and lates to the 
cadet officer of the day. Three minutes after the as- 
sembly for classes the name of every absentee is known 
and unless an absentee is properly excused he is looked 
up and sent at once to class. When the cadet is 
marched into his class room he does not leave the mili- 
tary ideal with his cap and overcoat outside the door. 
When he enters he stands at attention until the section 
marcher has reported to the instructor and then takes 
his seat at command. When he sits, he sits erect ; when 
he is at the board he uses it for the purpose for which 
it was intended and not as something to lean against, 
and is as soldierly in handling his pointer as in the use 
of his rifle, and as neat in the arrangement of his work 
on the board as he would be in preparing his room for 
an inspection. A soldierly attitude in such matters is 
certainly conducive to clearer thinking and expression. 

Classes continue until mess call and are resumed 
for a time in the afternoon. 

At Drill. — The drill call is sounded about three 



MILITARY SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 71 

o'clock. It continues for an hour to an hour and a half. 
It does not trench on time for his studies. Military- 
training in a well-organized school might almost be 
said to create by its enforced system the time it uses. 
It cuts out the waste time in the boy's day and gives it 
to drill. 

In the truly military school the boy soon finds that 
drills are not for mere show, but have a real purpose 
behind them. Probably his manual of arms, the han- 
dling of his rifle, is the first thing he has ever been 
made to do with precision and attention to details. 
There must be nothing slipshod about it, and it must 
be full of snap and spirit. In all of his close-order 
drills he must keep constantly on the alert, for he does 
not know what command is coming next and he must 
obey it instantly. He must not be a fraction of an in- 
stant behind his fellows. As a result, the slow-thinking 
boy is waked up and the inattentive boy made attentive. 
The obeying of command after command in time also 
tends to make obedience automatic. 

In schools where close-order infantry drills continue 
day after day the cadets become very tired of them and 
after a time derive little benefit. At Culver a great 
deal of attention has been given to making the drills 
as varied as possible. 

After the new cadet has mastered the essentials of 
the infantry drill a wide range of interesting practical 
instruction is afforded him. If he is fond of horses, 
and most boys are, he may take the cavalry instruction. 
He learns to ride without a saddle as do the troopers 
of the regular cavalry. He is awkward enough at first, 



72 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

but it is not long before he is mounting at the gallop, 
or standing up on his horse as it trots around the rid- 
ing hall. 

Later on he learns to do more spectacular feats of 
horsemanship, riding two or three horses at a time. In 
this way he acquires a wonderful amount of muscle 
and agility and learns to be perfectly at home on his 
horse independent of artificial supports. 

He also drills with the troop in the saddle and is 
taught the use of the saber, the carbine and the pistol. 

The thing that appeals to him most, however, is the 
week-end hike. The long rides across the country, and 
the camp in the evening, with the horses on the picket 
line, the bacon sizzling over the camp-fire, is an experi- 
ence to be remembered all his life. He learns on these 
hikes to take care of his own horse, to groom, to water 
and to feed him, to adjust his saddle on the march 
and to take care of himself in the field. 

The mounted artillery drill is also afforded at Cul- 
ver. A modern battery with its range finders, its tele- 
phonic systems of communication, its intricately con- 
structed guns and carriages affords an attractive form 
of instruction to the boy of mechanical tastes. The 
drill of the field wireless telegraph detachment is also 
a source of intense interest to many boys. 

The engineer company also provides a very popular 
and instructive form of drill. These cadets become 
very proficient in building spar and pontoon bridges 
across neighboring streams. 

Au important feature of the cadet's training and one 
that cultivates good judgment and steady nerves is 
rifle practise in the gallery and on the range. Marks- 



MILITARY SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 73 

men's and sharpshooters' badges are given the cadets 
under the same rules of qualifications as in the Na- 
tional Guard. 

Field exercises, with instruction in scouting that 
train the boy to observe closely and to think for him- 
self, come in for their share of attention, and such 
things as camp cooking, first aid and sanitation are by 
no means neglected. 

It is possible only to suggest the many interesting 
and highly instructive features of the drill. At least 
brief mention should be made of the system of guard 
duty. Even the youngest cadet has his tour of guard 
duty. It is a fine experience for a boy to be placed on 
post as a sentinel with definite orders to enforce and to 
feel that he is occupying a position of trust and re- 
sponsibility. The system of guard duty is made a very 
distinct feature at Culver. The older cadets, several 
of whom go on each day, as non-commissioned officers 
of the guard and as officer of the day, obtain a great 
deal of valuable executive experience. Under the 
direction of the officer in charge they supervise all 
formations, see that the day's routine is carried out as 
prescribed, keep all records of inspections and reports 
for breaches of discipline, and keep track of all cadets 
going on leave from the school or leaving quarters with 
permission during study hours. They know where 
every cadet in the school is during every hour of the 
day. The system in the officer of the day's office is as 
complete and as effective as that of any up-to-date 
business office. 

The drill period frequently closes with battalion 
parade. The cadets are drawn up in a long motionless 



74 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

line, resplendent with white cross belts and glistening 
brasses of the full dress equipment. The trumpeters 
sound retreat, the evening gun is fired and the band 
plays The Star-Spangled Banner while the national 
flag is impressively lowered. This ceremony is calcu- 
lated to stir a boy's patriotism if anything will. 

His Leisure Time. — After drill he has the same op- 
portunities for recreation that are enjoyed by the boys 
of other schools and he probably enjoys it the more be- 
cause of his busy day. With his absolute regularity of 
life and simple wholesome meals, he is always in train- 
ing and it is little to be wondered at that he excels in 
athletics, especially in football and basket-ball, where 
endurance tells. 

Company teams and strong inter-company rivalry 
afford the opportunity for many cadets to go in for 
athletics. At Culver, football, track, tennis, baseball, 
basket-ball, hockey, skating, swimming and boat-racing 
form the principal sports. 

Cadets who have no demerits may obtain passes to 
go ofif the grounds on holidays, but the effort is made 
to furnish every opportunity for amusement within 
the limits of the academy. The recreation period is 
considered as important as any other part of the day 
and it is very carefully provided for. The gymnasium, 
bowling alleys, billiard and pool rooms and a moving- 
picture theater for Saturday nights are included in the 
, equipment. 

Entertainments and lectures are provided each week 
in the winter and on special occasions, such as Thanks- 
giving, Easter and Commencement, the friends of 
[cadets are asked to yisit the academy. The glee clubi 



MILITARY SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 75 

and the dramatic club perform for their benefit, exhibi- 
tion drills are given and dances are held in the gymna- 
sium. On Saturday nights the band plays during the 
supper hour and popular songs are sung. So, on the 
whole, the cadet manages to have a good deal of fun in 
the manner suggested and also in other ways that there 
is no space to describe. 

On Sunday mornings he prepares his room for an 
especially thorough inspection during which an officer 
passes his white gloves over all the furniture, and sees 
that underclothes are neatly folded and stacked and 
everything carefully in its place. 

After the inspection the cadet marches to church. 
The afternoon he has to himself for letters home or 
a walk in the country or any form of exercise except 
match games. 

The Evening Hours. — In the evenings call to quar- 
ters is sounded at seven, and except on Saturday and 
Sunday evenings the cadet studies until nine o'clock, 
after which he has a half-hour in which to relax and 
undress before turning out his lights at nine-thirty. 
Hardly has the inspector passed and the orderly an- 
swered "right," meaning that he and his roommate are 
present and in bed, before they are both quite sound 
asleep. 

A boy once told me that when he first entered the 
school he thought it was an absurd thing to send a 
seventeen- or eighteen-year-old boy to bed at nine- 
thirty, but that after a few busy days of military life 
he came to the conclusion that it was one of the most 
sensible things that was done. Nine-thirty to six is 
eight and one-half hours for sleep, which in most cases 



76 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

seems sufficient. On Sunday mornings the cadets may 
sleep an hour longer. 

His Bodily Development. — The changes that take 
place in a boy physically under this regime are very 
marked. The habit of standing erect with his chin 
drawn in fastens itself upon him. His muscles be- 
come firm and resilient; he takes on a ruddy color 
and a hard-as-nails look. In his appearance of phys- 
ical fitness there is no comparison between the average 
cadet of an essentially military academy and the aver- 
age boy of the civilian school. The cavalry drill is an 
especially fine form of exercise. I have seen many an 
under-developed stripling grow strong and sturdy in 
a few months in the riding school. If the cadet needs 
special developing he is put under an expert in the 
gymnasium. If he has some lateral curvature or a 
bad position of the neck or head he is given a long 
patient course of special remedial work with mirrors 
and plumb-line to guide him. I have had a number of 
photographs made of cadets stripped at the time of 
entrance and again at intervals of several months. The 
photographs register the most remarkable improvement 
physically, but even more striking in many cases is 
the change in physical expression; the tightening up 
of the lines around the mouth and the coming into the 
eyes of a more purposeful look. 

The Acquirement of System and Order. — A lack 
of system and order is perhaps one of the most serious 
defects in American boys. A boy who has been taught 
to do things systematically will in his business life pos- 
sess a decided advantage over boys who have not been 
so trained. It can not be claimed that military train- 



MILITARY SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 77 

ing will make every boy systematic and orderly but 
it will have this result in many cases. In other cases it 
will at least give the boy a better idea of the value of 
such things and create in him the desire ultimately to 
correct his own shortcomings. A great deal depends 
on the character of the training. If the cadet sees 
around him every detail of the school's administration 
conducted on the soundest business principles of econ- 
omy and efficiency and if he himself is pursuing day 
after day an absolutely systematic schedule, he can not 
escape the effects. If also he is consistently made to 
practise neatness and order he will surely profit 
thereby. 

The plan of having cadets care for their own rooms 
is one means adopted by the military school for afford- 
ing this practise in orderly habits. A boy is much more 
apt to acquire the habit of neatness when required to 
pick up his own things than he is when he has a mother 
or a maid to pick them up for him. 

If he merely learned, however, to clean up his room, 
little would be gained ; but with a full schedule and the 
minutes at a premium he is apt to reach the point where 
he concludes that it would be highly desirable and a 
great economy of time not to have to pick up things at 
all. This state of affairs he may bring about by school- 
ing himself to put articles back where they belong the 
instant he is through with them. He is encouraged 
somewhat in this more helpful view of the situation if 
the inspections instead of being made at stated times 
when he is notified to be ready for them are made at 
odd intervals; just after he has changed his clothes 
and rushes off to drill, for instance. 



78 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

He is further helped if the furniture is of special 
construction, not only with a place for everything, but 
with a place to which things may be returned with 
the minimum of delay. 

At Culver a great deal of thought has been given to 
the designing of such furniture. It is not only very 
compact, but any article may be removed without dis- 
turbing others. There are no drawers to be mussed 
up, but subdivided shelves for each separate kind of 
clothing, except outer clothing, which is hung so that 
no garment is in front of or in the way of another. 

That boys do backslide and disappoint their mothers 
when they go home from military schools is true, but 
if the training has been good they will show its effects 
after the reaction that accompanies a release from close 
discipline is over. 

The Spiritual Phase of the Cadet's Life. — The 
spiritual phase of education is the most difficult, but 
the most important. Whenever this element is an inci- 
dent of minor consideration the school fails in its most 
essential function. In Culver we aim at faith rather 
than dogma, at inspiration rather than a code, at a 
spiritual atmosphere rather than positive instruction. 
It must be approached with urgency and reverence. 
Mere morality from the spiritual impulse misses the 
mark. It lacks vigor and life. The teacher must de- 
vise his own methods. He must select his own avenues 
of approach. Morality has been defined as man's rela- 
tion to man and religion as man's relation to the uni- 
verse. In the formative period this question of rela- 
tionship must have a place — a large place. 

We approach this through the personality of the 



MILITARY SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 79 



teacher, through an organized Young Men's Christian 
Association and by bringing the students in personal 

contact with the spiritual leaders of the nation. 

The following is the schedule in force at Culver 

which, with some modifications, is essentially that of 
other schools of the same type: 

■ Nature of Duty ITa/m/ *° &P^-m!- Sunday 

Reveille, 1st call 6:00 A. M. 6:00 A. M. 7:00 A. M. 

Reveille, 2nd call 6:10 6:10 7:10 

Police Inspection 6:30 6:30 7:30 

Sickcall 6:40 6:40 7:40 

Breakfast, 1st call 6:50 6:50 7:50 

Breakfast, 2nd call 7.00 7:00 8:00 

Chapel, 1st call 7:40 11:00 

Chapel, 2nd call 7:45 11:10 

Study and Recitation 8:00 to 12:30 

General Inspection, 1st call 8:50 

General Inspection, 2nd call 9:30 

Recreation 

Dinner, 1st call 12:30 P.M. 12:30 P. M. 12:50 P.M. 

Dinner, 2nd call 12:40 12:40 1:00 

Guard Mounting, 1st call 1:15 1:15 12:15 

Guard Mounting, 2nd call 1:25 1:25 12:25 

Call to Quarters 1:40 

Study and Recitation 1:40 to 3:00 

Drill, 1st call 3:00 

Drill, 2nd call 3:10 Recreation 

Recall from Drill 3:55 Recreation 

Parade, 1st call 3:55 

Parade, 2nd call 4:05 

Recreation 4:30 to 5:50 

Supper, 1st call 5:50 5:50 5:50 

Supper, 2nd call 6:00 6:00 6:00 

Call to Quarters 7:00to9:00 7:00 7:00 

Study 7:00 to 9:00 

Tattoo 9:00 9:00 9:00 

Taps. 9:30 9:30 9:30 



CHAPTER III 



THE FACULTY 



THE head of a strictly military institution in con- 
formity with the West Point custom is ordinarily 
designated as the superintendent. Usually he is a man 
who has had military training. Unless such is the 
case the institution is not likely to achieve the high- 
est degree of success in the application of the military 
system. The superintendent does not, as a rule, take 
active part in the military instruction of cadets, but 
necessarily determines to what extent the school shall 
be conducted in harmony with military traditions. 

The superintendent naturally has the immediate 
government of the institution and all officers, instruct- 
ors, cadets and employees are under his command. All 
applications for unusual privileges and cases of severe 
discipline are referred to him for his judgment and 
approval. 

The Academic Staff. — The faculty is ordinarily 
divided into an academic and a military staff. In the 
smaller schools the two overlap but in some of the 
larger schools they are quite distinct. In general the 
members of both staffs are given military rank and 
their members appear in uniform while on duty. The 
rank is usually local; however, in some institutions 
commissions are conferred by the state either on the 
entire faculty or on members of the military staff alone. 

80 



MILITARY SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 81 

The head, of the academic staff has immediate su- 
pervision of the classification of cadets, the arrange- 
ment of curriculum and the methods of instruction. 
He is variously designated as the president of the aca- 
demic board, the head master, director of studies, etc. 

He is responsible to the superintendent for the 
proper conduct of the academic work of the school. 
The members of the academic staff at Culver are 
designated as captain and instructor, first lieutenant 
and associate instructor, second lieutenant and assist- 
ant instructor. Each academic department has its 
own head who is a full instructor and also receives 
extra compensation. He in turn is responsible to the 
head of the academic staff for the work of his depart- 
ment. 

The Military Staff. — The military staff as its name 
implies is directly responsible for the military train- 
ing and instruction of cadets. At its head is the com- 
mandant of cadets. This position requires a man of 
unusual judgment and experience. He must combine 
with thorough military training more than ordinary 
ability to deal with boys. Many a school has failed 
as a military institution because this post was inad- 
equately filled. The commandant of cadets, as his 
name implies, is in immediate command of the bat- 
talion of cadets ; he is also the chief instructor in mili- 
tary tactics and is responsible for discipline. In some 
institutions the post of commandant of cadets is filled 
by the officer of the army detailed to the institution by 
the War Department as professor of military science. 
In others it has seemed best to appoint as commandant 
of cadets, one who is permanently attached to the 



82 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

institution and who may study its needs and require- 
ments over a long period of years. In such cases the 
professor of military science acts in an advisory ca- 
pacity to the superintendent, but does not take imme- 
diate charge of discipline. The professor of military 
science lectures to the cadets and in general directs the 
system of military instruction in harmony with the 
requirements of the War Department. 

At Culver the military staff, in addition to the two 
officers mentioned, consists of an instructor of cavalry, 
an instructor of military engineering, instructor of 
artillery, an instructor of target practise and six in- 
structors of infantry. Each of these officers is in 
command of a company of the corps of cadets. At 
West Point the barracks are under immediate control 
of cadet officers. In military schools where younger 
boys are in attendance it has been considered desirable 
to have officers of the faculty quartered in barracks, 
cadet officers acting as their assistants in maintaining 
discipline. 

Oversight of Cadets.— A complete system of in- 
spection keeps the cadet very closely under the su- 
pervision of his instructors. These inspections are 
designed to insure not only close conformity to the reg- 
ulations in the matters of conduct, but also to see that 
study hours are carefully observed and that the quar- 
ters are kept in neat and soldierly condition. These 
inspections are made by officers quartered in barracks, 
by the officer of the military staff who is especially 
"in charge" of discipline for the day, by the cadet offi- 
cer of the day and by cadet officers who are assistant 
inspectors of divisions of barracks. Some of these 



MILITARY SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 83 

inspections are made during study hours and some dur- 
ing recreation ; one inspection is always made between 
the hour of retiring and the hour of rising. 

There is no spying on the cadet, no sneaking around 
to catch him unawares. It is understood that his offi- 
cers are concerned, not so much in catching him in 
breaches of regulations as in discouraging him from 
breaking them. I do not mean to say that a system of 
supervision can be devised that will eliminate every 
opportunity for the cadets to do wrong. It would 
be unwise even to attempt it. For the boy to be 
eternally under the eye of the instructor would not 
only be oppressive, it would be unproductive of the 
best results. There is a happy medium between super- 
ficial oversight which allows serious abuses to creep 
in and nagging, distrustful surveillance that breeds 
antagonism. There is some tendency for the cadet to 
react when first released from strict discipline of the 
military academy, but if the school has imparted ideals 
as well as discipline it is my experience that the re- 
action at worst will be brief and not very serious. 

Personal Relations Betw^een Officers and Cadets. 
— The intercourse between officers and cadets on duty 
is always formal. Cadets in meeting officers extend 
the military salute, which the officers punctiliously re- 
turn. The cadet is taught to understand that the sa- 
lute is not in any sense an expression of servility, but 
an exchange of courtesy between gentlemen in accord- 
ance with the military custom, the junior saluting first. 
For this reason cadets are cautioned that perfunctory 
salutes are bad form and that a salute to be really 
courteous must be rendered with spirit and precision. 



84 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

If an officer approaches cadets who are seated, they 
stand at attention. This rule does not apply in the 
reading room, recreation rooms or on the athletic field 
unless the cadet is spoken to by the officer. There is 
none of that lolling against the teacher's desk and 
greeting him with "Say ! I would like to know, etc." 
A cadet reporting to an officer stands squarely on his 

feet and saluting, says : "Sir, Cadet reports his 

presence." On receiving the officer's acknowledgment 
of his report the cadet states his business in a direct 
and businesslike but respectful manner. If the officer 
wishes to talk with the cadet in a friendly and in- 
formal manner, he may ask him to be seated, but at 
the conclusion of the chat, no matter how informal, 
the cadet comes to attention, salutes and takes his de- 
parture in military fashion. The improvement that 
this strict observance of military courtesy makes in the 
bearing and attitude of the average boy is very striking. 

Despite this formal intercourse between officer and 
cadet there is real respect and understanding between 
the two. Off duty there is friendliness without the 
"slap-on-the-back intimacy" so destructive of real in- 
fluence. 

Capable teachers, men who have a real genius for 
handling boys, are hard to secure. The problem is even 
more difficult in the military school. The careful ob- 
servance of the rules of military courtesy, the salutes, 
the standing at attention, the use of the "sir," inculcate 
respect for authority and good manners but they may 
interpose a barrier to reaching the real boy unless the 
teacher or officer is possessed of just the right qualities 
of tact, discrimination and good judgment. 



CHAPTER IV 

STUDIES AND METHOD OF INSTRUCTION 

THE military school differs very little, if any, 
from the civilian preparatory school in its courses 
of study. Its methods of instruction, however, are 
more or less influenced by the military traditions of 
the school and its daily schedule is necessarily made 
more full by the addition of military drill. Since the 
drill supplements the curriculum of the civilian school 
it is fair to ask whether it trenches on the boy's time 
for study. 

The time that is given to actual drill is, in part, time 
that goes to waste in a less carefully organized sched- 
ule and in part it is time that the boy in the civilian 
school would have to himself. This does not mean 
that the cadet is overworked. Not including meals he 
has from an hour and a half to two hours of recrea- 
tion daily. He also has Saturday afternoon, Sunday 
afternoon, a part of Monday forenoon and Saturday 
and Sunday evenings. If necessary he may readily 
give even a portion of this time to extra study since 
he gets a fair amount of daily exercise from the re- 
quired drills. Ordinarily, however, if he makes good 
use of his time he will find sufficient opportunity to 
prepare his lessons in the regularly allotted study 
hours. At Culver a cadet has per day an average of 

85 



86 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

four periods of recitation of forty-five minutes each 
with two hours and a half for study during the day 
and two hours and fifteen minutes in the evening. 
This will be found to differ very little, if any, from the 
average allotment of time for study and recreation in 
the civilian school. 

At Culver a special "help" period is included in the 
day's schedule. During this period instructors are re- 
quired to be on duty in their class rooms and to give 
assistance to cadets who call on them. This does not 
preclude the giving of assistance at other times, but 
it furnishes a definite period for that purpose when no 
other duties conflict. Cadets may be instructed to re- 
port during this period or they may go of their own 
volition. 

I do not know of this system being employed else- 
where. It is not given therefore as a typical arrange- 
ment but simply as a scheme that has worked out very 
satisfactorily in practise. It is in harmony with the 
military idea of having a definite time for every im- 
portant thing and furnishes assistance more compre- 
hensively and effectively than is possible under a sched- 
ule with no designated time for this purpose. 

Danger of Military Features Overshadowing the 
Academic. — There is a danger that the military fea- 
tures of the school may overshadow its academic work, 
but such need not be the case. No institution in the 
country has been able to maintain more rigid standards 
of academic efficiency than West Point, yet the time 
and attention given to purely military parts of the cur- 
riculum are necessarily much greater than in private 
military schools. West Point, however, puts a high 



MILITARY SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 87 

premium on academic efficiency. The relative rating 
of cadets in the academy, their rank at graduation, the 
arm of the service to which assigned, in fact the par- 
ticular cast of their life's work is determined by their 
class standing. 

It is necessary for private military schools likewise 
to place a high premium on scholarship and to guard 
against class-room duties becoming eclipsed by those 
military features which make a more ready appeal to 
the cadets' interest. Satisfactory academic work as 
a requirement for promotion to military rank, the ap- 
pointment as class marcher of the cadet who stands 
highest in his section, the awarding of special insignia 
to men who win academic honors afford tangible evi- 
dence to the cadet that the authorities wish to en- 
courage good class-room work. But these are not suf- 
ficient in themselves. If a cadet is permitted to "get 
by" with half-prepared recitations and slipshod work 
in the class room while a high degree of accuracy and 
thoroughness is required of him on the drill field, he 
will very naturally conclude that his studies are con- 
sidered of less importance than drill. 

It becomes doubly important, therefore, that any 
failure of the cadet in his academic work should re- 
ceive careful and effective attention. 

Supervision of Class-Room Work. — The super- 
vision of class-room work and the investigation of the 
causes of any failure of cadets to keep up to the re- 
quired standard are duties of the head of the academic 
department. To him must be reported each day cadets 
who fail to keep their work up to the standard of 
which they are capable or who neglect to bring as- 



88 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

signed work to the class. These cadets may in his 
discretion be required to report to study hall during 
the recreation period, or may be required to prepare 
their lessons during study hours in the study hall in- 
stead of in their rooms. Study hall is maintained both 
in the evening and during the day. In fact, two study 
halls are maintained — one for cadets who really need 
assistance, and one for cadets who need only to be 
made to study. 

In the latter class will fall those boys of more than 
usual ability who are satisfied with mediocre work, 
and who, unless they receive as definite attention as 
the boys who need actual assistance, will fail to get the 
discipline that comes from hard work and will prob- 
ably go out from the school less efficient workers and 
thinkers than some of their slower comrades. It is 
not always an easy matter, as teachers know, to deter- 
mine when a boy is working up to the limit of his 
ability or to distinguish between the boys who require 
assistance and those who merely need prodding. 

During the past few years at Culver considerable 
study has been given to the matter of determining a 
coefficient of efficiency for each cadet; something that 
will supplement the judgment of the teacher in de- 
termining whether or not he is working up to the limit 
of his ability and that will also give a more scientific 
and satisfactory basis for his classification. 

Mental Tests. — In this connection a new position 
has been created in the faculty, that of consulting psy- 
chologist. In addition to conferring with teachers in 
regard to class-room methods, of grading, and with 
individual cadets in regard to their methods of study 



MILITARY SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 89 

and other particular difficulties, he has given much at- 
tention to correlating a system of mental tests from 
which may be gained a fairly accurate idea of the 
ability of each cadet and his probable aptitude for cer- 
tain lines of efifort. 

These tests, like the medical and physical examina- 
tions, are given to all cadets on entering the academy. 
To avoid a feeling of restraint and embarrassment 
they are first given to groups and later those cases 
that seem to warrant special study are given more ex- 
tended individual tests. The uniform conditions under 
which all members of a military school live and study 
render it possible to make comparisons and deductions 
from psychological tests with a much greater degree 
of reliability than would be possible in other schools. 
It is for that reason that Culver was able to attract 
from a large university one of the most active in- 
vestigators in the field of mental tests. 

The West Point Plan of Small Sections. — Many 
military schools have adopted the West Point plan 
of dividing the classes in each subject into small sec- 
tions. The number of cadets in each section rarely 
exceeds ten or twelve and in those sections which con- 
tain the more backward students there are frequently 
not more than five or six. This, of course, necessi- 
tates a large teaching force, but it results in the stu- 
dents covering the subject with greater thoroughness, 
avoids crowding those who are slower or holding back 
the more apt, and makes it possible to require daily 
recitations from each cadet and to give the individual 
a greater amount of personal attention. 

Under such a system there is naturally more op- 



90 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

portunity of correcting the wasteful and unscientific 
methods of study so characteristic of most prepara- 
tory-school boys. It is needless to say that the boy who 
has really learned to work goes to college with a much 
more valuable asset than a list of credits or a mind 
crammed for an entrance examination. 

Special Provisions for Boys Who Do Not Go to 
College. — There are many boys who will benefit by 
a secondary-school education who would not find it 
worth while to go to college. These boys as a rule re- 
quire a degree of guidance and help that can not be af- 
forded in the larger classes of the high school. It is 
doubtful also whether our best private schools make 
adequate provision for this type of boy. The courses 
in such schools as a rule are shaped almost entirely 
with a view to preparing boys for college. 

Boys of the type referred to, however, are worthy 
of the best efforts of the private school. The military 
system frequently discloses in this type executive abil- 
ity and other qualities which will enable the boy to at- 
tain a high degree of success in business or commercial 
pursuits. It is for this reason perhaps that schools like 
Culver have considered it especially worth while to 
give these boys an unusual degree of help and guidance 
and in some cases to make special provision for them in 
their courses of study. 

At Culver a business course is ofifered which has 
been prepared with as much care and attention as 
the courses designed for boys who are preparing for 
college. This course is not analogous to that of the 
business colleges. It includes such electives as stenog- 
raphy, bookkeeping and commercial law, but its aim is 



MILITARY SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 91 

to give the boy fundamental principles rather than com- 
mercial practise, and in addition to afford him as much 
general information and cultural training as possible. 

In affording the special help and guidance that will 
enable boys of very moderate ability and boys who lack 
a taste for books to graduate from the school, some 
risk is run of encouraging these boys to waste time in 
attempting a college course from which they will be 
unable to derive any adequate benefit. 

To regulate this in a measure Culver will not recom- 
mend for admission to college without examination 
boys who fail to make grades of eighty or above in all 
of the subjects of the last two years. From time to 
time boys who are below this standard succeed in gain- 
ing admission to college and fail to do credit to the 
school. This consideration is more than offset, how- 
ever, by the training for useful citizenship that has 
been given many other boys who without the incentive 
of a diploma and without special help might have been 
denied the opportunities afforded them by a secondary- 
school course. 



CHAPTER V 

THE SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT BY CADETS 

THE officers of the school are naturally expected 
to report such violations of rules as they may see. 
A distinct feature of the system, however, is the obliga- 
tion of cadets when on duty to report fellow-cadets 
who violate the rules. The cadet off duty will no more 
tell tales on his fellows than the boy in other schools. 
When the relationship is purely that of comrade to 
comrade it is not expected of him, but on duty it is dif- 
ferent. In all military schools the cadet officers, the 
marcher of a class, the sentinel on duty, are expected to 
report breaches of discipline on the part of their fel- 
lows. Sometimes this is not conscientiously done, and 
where such is the case, the effect is evil both on the boy 
who is pretending to do a duty which he fails to per- 
form and on the boy under him who gets such a bad 
object lesson in fidelity to a trust. 

Under an honor system cadets may be made to 
understand the difference between being on duty and 
off duty, and a roommate or a chum may be reported 
without giving offense if the report is just. It is un- 
derstood that the action is impersonal and a matter of 
duty. 

It is not easy to bring this about ; it requires careful 
molding of the traditions of the school and keeping 

92 



MILITARY SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 93 

constantly before the cadet officers the highest ideals of 
duty. It can be accomplished, however, and it can be 
carried to a point where cadet officers feel a responsi- 
bility even off duty for anything which affects the 
honor and good name of the school. When this point is 
reached something very vital has been gained, for, how- 
ever vigilant the officers or teachers of the school may 
be, they can not know everything that goes on below 
the surface of outward conformity. But if they can in- 
spire the cadets themselves to be the guardians of the 
best interests of the corps in these vital matters, then 
indeed may they say to the parent, "This school is a 
safe place for your boy." 

Selection, of Cadet GfBcers. — The system of ap- 
pointment of cadet officers and the administration of 
discipline through them affords one of the finest fea- 
tures of the military school. Service as a cadet officer 
furnishes a valuable opportunity for the rounding out 
of character and for the acquirement of executive ex- 
perience. The minute a boy is given discipline to en- 
force he sees the other side of the shield ; he acquires 
balance and a sense of proportion ; the view-point of 
the governor as well as the governed. I have seen pre- 
paratory-school boys gain from their experience as 
lieutenants and captains a poise and bearing that 
would be more than marked even among mature col- 
lege men. 

In the best schools the greatest care is exercised in 
the selection of these cadet officers. Those on whom 
the most responsibility rests are the commissioned of- 
ficers : the captains and lieutenants, chosen from the 
most mature boys of the senior class. No one who 



94 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

has served less than two, preferably three years, is 
selected. 

There should be abundant opportunity before such 
responsibility is placed in him, not only for the boy 
to become thoroughly imbued with the best traditions 
of the school, but for those who appoint him to become 
familiar with his every trait and tendency. 

That the boy should be showy in appearance ; even 
that he have force and ability to command, are not 
sufficient. Great care must be exercised to guard 
against the danger of jingoism and the spirit that man- 
ifests itself in the swagger of the swashbuckler. That 
the candidate for promotion is trustworthy, that he 
is able to resist the lure of popularity in the strict per- 
formance of his duty, that he is conscientious, that he 
is instinctively fair and honorable, these are the prime 
requisites. 

These things can not be determined in a few hours' 
thought in making up a list at the end of a year. One 
of the most important things that has been worked 
out at Culver is a system of efficiency records which 
keeps throughout the year the qualifications of the 
boy constantly in the minds of those who are finally 
to judge of his fitness for promotion. By this plan 
the estimate of character and merit on which appoint- 
ments are made at the end of the term are as nearly 
correct as it is humanly possible to make them. And 
by this plan the danger of putting into positions of 
trust and responsibility boys who will use their influ- 
ence harmfully is reduced to the minimum. 

Training of Cadet Officers. — The cadet officers 
having been wisely chosen, it becomes necessary to 



MILITARY SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 95 

train them with the greatest care. There must be the 
closest cooperation between cadet officers and officers 
of the school, but there must be the nicest distinction 
between cooperation and carrying too much of the 
boy's responsibility for him. Herein is where a seri- 
ous mistake is sometimes made; the boy's office must 
mean more to him than the opportunity to wear chev- 
rons and to give mechanical commands at drill. 

While each company has attached to it an officer 
of the school, he is there in an advisory capacity; the 
actual handling of the company is done by the cadet 
captain. 

It is impressed upon him that it is not sufficient for 
him merely to instruct the members of his company 
in marching and going through the manual of arms 
and to prevent trifling and talking and require obedi- 
ence. He must take a keen interest in the welfare of 
every boy in his company. His relationship must be 
such that the boy will be willing to come to him for 
advice in intimate matters and talk to him about things 
that, because they perhaps involve his comrades, he 
would hesitate to speak about to an officer of the 
school. 

The Cadet Officer's Responsibility. — The captain 
must be taught also that he has a responsibility for 
the other company officers under him. If a newly 
appointed corporal in the first enthusiasm of his new 
honors is overzealous and antagonizes and ruffles the 
cadets in the company by noisy and unnecessary cor- 
rections, he has to be straightened out. If some one 
has been unfair ; has really "got it in for some cadet" 
against whom he has a grudge, a thing that does not 



96 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

often happen with careful selection, here again the 
cadet captain must take a hand and see that the offend- 
ing one is removed from the position he abuses. He 
must encourage and stimulate those who are not doing 
well, meet and talk to them from the vantage point 
of being a fellow cadet. He must "weed" out the 
mere "knocks" and take the just grievances of his 
men to higher authority when he can not himself ad- 
just them. 

It is amazing how successfully this sort of thing 
is done by boys of seventeen and eighteen. Unless 
this phase of the cadet officer's duty is strongly em- 
phasized the system is of little value either to the 
school or to the boy who has won for himself by dili- 
gence and fidelity the award of an officer's chevrons. 



CHAPTER VI 



DISCIPLINE 



THOSE who regard discipline in a narrow and 
restricted sense as something that applies only to 
measures that must be taken with boys of an unruly 
type, are apt to conclude that because the military 
school stresses discipline it specializes in those boys 
whom their parents or civilian schools can not con- 
trol. This is a mistake. Military schools of the best 
type are as careful in the character of the students 
admitted as are the best civilian schools, and perhaps 
have the advantage of the civilian school in possessing 
a system which reveals with greater certainty and with 
less loss of time any boy of undesirable influence who 
may have slipped through despite the safeguards to 
admission. 

The Need for Discipline. — Quite apart from the 
boy of bad character, however, is the average Amer- 
ican boy, who is notably lacking in respect for author- 
ity; and there are also the sons of the wealthy and 
well-to-do, for whom life has been too easy; and the 
only boy, of whom there are many and around whom 
the home circle has revolved until he has become self- 
ish and self -centered. There is to be considered also 
the fact that a time comes in the life of every normal 
boy when he chafes under home discipline and when 

97 



98 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

others can deal with him more effectively than his 
parents. 

Discipline should not be a side issue or a by-product 
of the school. There is too much emphasis laid on 
mere book learning ; too little on the building of char- 
acter. "The next twenty pages in history; the next 
ten problems in algebra" make definite tasks that take 
care of themselves. The discipline of the boy's moral 
nature, the strengthening of his moral fiber should re- 
ceive positive definite attention. Any system should 
be welcomed that tends definitely to bring out the best 
that is in a boy, that develops his sense of honor and 
of duty and that teaches him to obey, that he later may 
learn to command. 

EfTectivenessi of the Military System.- — The mili- 
tary system accomplishes these things effectively be- 
cause it appeals to the boy. It fails to appeal only 
when it is a hollow sham to tickle the fancy or lure 
pupils, as it unfortunately is in some schools. But 
if it is real it exercises over him a subtle and far-reach- 
ing influence ; it makes him submit himself to a system 
of plain and wholesome living and to restrictions un- 
der which he would probably rebel in any other type 
of school. There are over-indulgent parents and 
spoiled children in every generation, but there are also 
in this generation many thoughtful and earnest par- 
ents who find themselves, in the face of modern con- 
ditions, powerless to train and safeguard their children 
as they would during that period of greatest danger, 
from fourteen to twenty. The boy needs oversight at 
that time of the most careful and tactful nature. He 
needs a normal wholesome atmosphere and regular 



MILITARY SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 99 

hours and simple diet and abundant exercise. He 
needs to be thrown on his own resources just far 
enough, but not too far. His sense of humor must be 
appealed to, but undeveloped character must not be 
placed under too great a strain. He must learn by- 
suffering the penalty of his mistakes not to make them 
a second time; but the penalties, if they are not to 
antagonize and lose their effect, must be impersonal 
and meted out with exact justice. Rewards must also 
play their part. Such conditions are almost ideally 
provided by an intelligently applied military system. 

To Command Respect the Discipline Must Be 
Real. — Some schools have been timid about applying 
the military system. They have been fearful of scar- 
ing boys if they made it too hard. The result as a rule 
is a discipline that is poverty-stricken in results. Boys 
are not afraid of a few hardships if they are sure that 
they are getting the real thing. They may do a little 
grumbling now and then like the rest of us, but they 
will enter into the spirit of a thing that they respect. 
They have a fine contempt for the imitation. They do 
not like to feel that they are simply "tin" soldiers. I 
have seen boys who had been brought up in ease and 
luxury, grooming horses on the picket line, peeling 
potatoes on kitchen police on an overnight march, or 
standing guard on a cold rainy night and doing it 
cheerfully with never a thought of not playing the 
game. And I have seen many a youngster around 
whom the home circle had revolved from the day of 
his birth, obeying without question and with the most 
soldierly spirit the orders of cadet officers and sentinels 
of his own age and younger. I have seen the amaze- 



100 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

ment and sometimes the amusement of parents because 
their boys on the very day of entrance have so caught 
the spirit of the thing that apparently their whole atti- 
tude toward obedience and promptness has undergone 
a transformation. 

Where the traditions are right and the true military 
spirit prevails the boy senses it immediately. 

Illustrating the Effect on the Boy. — ^A specialist 
who visited a certain school said to a boy who had 
been under his care, "You hear better than you used 
to." "You have to hear here, sir," was the immediate 
response. This conveys a very good idea of the boy's 
attitude toward military discipline as does the remark 
that a bright youngster made to his mother on his re- 
turn home for his first vacation: "Mother," he said, 
"why haven't you all these years told me 'do it' in- 
stead of 'won't you do it'? It would have saved me 
hours." Strangely enough, however, the mother's "do 
it" would probably not have been so effective as the 
"do it" of the smallest corporal with the badge of 
military authority on his sleeve and the atmosphere 
of military traditions behind him. 

During an experience of seventeen years with some 
six thousand boys, I can recall but few cases of direct 
disobedience to orders. Of course, under military 
rules direct disobedience means expulsion or some 
heavy penalty, and talking back is a serious offense; 
but it takes something more potent than the mere fear 
of a penalty always to keep in check the quick temper 
and to secure unquestioning obedience and respect for 
authority from the very start, especially when so fre- 
quently these things are not required at home. 



MILITARY SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 101 

Respect for Authority. — If the boy merely obeyed 
under the influence of mihtary suggestion and contin- 
ued to argue matters at home, little would be gained. 
As a matter of fact, however, his life month after 
month in an atmosphere of discipline inculcates a real 
and permanent respect for authority. I have the tes- 
timony of many parents to that effect. 

I have no particular reference to the so-called un- 
ruly boy. This lack of respect for authority is quite 
a common trait in the American youth and any sys- 
tem that corrects it effectively renders a distinct serv- 
ice to the boy, his parents and the state. 

Doctor Austin B. Hayden, a Chicago nose and throat 
specialist, and member of the faculty of Rush Medi- 
cal College, told me that the effect of military disci- 
pline had manifested itself in a very interesting way 
in connection with his practise at Culver. The insti- 
tution had made especial arrangements with him to 
operate on those of its cadets who from time to time 
were found to be handicapped by enlarged tonsils, 
adenoids and similar ailments. In every one of these 
cases, he said, had he been able to operate perfectly 
with the use of merely local anesthetics. He was not 
only able to operate much more speedily, but also more 
effectively. The boy did exactly what he was told 
the instant he was told and submitted unflinchingly 
to the operation. In no other type of school, he said, 
could he have done this in every case. The difference 
to him was most marked. 

A Fine Test of Discipline. — One of the most satis- 
fying tests of military discipline that has come under 
my personal observation occurred during the flood of 



102 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

1913. The city of Logansport, Indiana, is located at 
the junction of the Eel and Wabash Rivers. For a 
time it was in as desperate a plight as any city in the 
flooded district. Some hundred cadets went to the 
rescue, using man-of-war cutters that had been loaned 
them by the national government for the purposes of 
naval instruction. The call for help came about mid- 
night. The cutters, which are twenty-eight feet long, 
eight feet in beam and weigh three thousand pounds, 
were stored for the winter in boat houses. Working 
by the light of lanterns the cadets loaded these boats 
on flat cars, finishing the arduous task about three a. m. 

Rations for a day were issued, and the cadets, who 
were to man the boats, clambered into the caboose and 
the train pulled out into the darkness, feeling its way 
over weakened bridges and culverts. It finally reached 
Logansport just as day was breaking. 

The cadets skidded their boats off the cars and slid 
them down the street-car track for a couple of blocks 
until they floated. Then they manned their oars and 
pulled toward the sections in greatest distress, near 
the banks of the river. 

The current grew more swift and finally in a great 
rushing swirl at a street crossing the first boat was 
dashed against a telegraph pole, smashing two of its 
heavy fourteen-foot oars. Fortunately, extra oars had 
been supplied. 

From then on ensued a hard all-day battle with 
swift currents and foaming eddies, dangerously com- 
plicated with wires and tree-tops. Snatching a mouth- 
ful of coffee occasionally, as they came to shore, the 
cadets worked unceasingly. 



MILITARY SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 103 

During the afternoon they kept steadily on, although 
half blinded by a driving snowstorm and with hands 
so cold that they could with difficulty retain their grasp 
of the oars. Women and children were tenderly helped 
down from roofs and windows; the sick, the hungry 
and the cold, the aged and infirm were put into the 
boats and taken to places of safety without a slip or 
a mishap. 

By the second evening fourteen hundred people had 
been taken from the inundated district by these boys 
in their four cutters. And then, securing their boats 
because the waters had receded too far to make it 
possible to get them back to the railroad, they marched 
by a long detour back to the depot. 

By all the laws of nature they should have been ex- 
hausted, but they went their way with a swinging step, 
singing, and occasionally giving a school yell. 

I do not mean to say that boys of a civilian school 
would not have been just as anxious to lend the aid 
that these cadets did, but what I do mean to say is 
that they could not have done it. 

Even if they had had the physical endurance they 
would have lacked the organization, the perfect coor- 
dination. Obedience had to be automatic ; there were 
times when instant response to commands, absolute 
coolness and absence of confusion meant perhaps the 
lives of a boat load of people. 

It was not the fact that these boys did this duty, 
but that they did it so effectively — without slip or 
accident and merely as a matter of course — that I 
consider such a fine demonstration of the effects of 
military discipline. 



104 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

The people of Logansport have erected in commem- 
oration of this service a fine gate at the entrance of 
the school. It seems most fitting that the cadets of 
the institution as they enter and as they leave should 
have this reminder of the value of discipline and effi- 
ciency and of the ideals of service to their f ellowmen. 

Once after this incident I was talking to a boy who 
wanted to give up in the face of some small discour- 
agement. I had talked to him quite a while without 
effect. Finally I said to him : "Do you suppose when 
we took those cadets to Logansport that we would 
have dared to risk including a man who had ever 
shown the kind of spirit you are showing now, or a 
fellow we knew would be willing to quit under any 
circumstances ?" 

The effect of that concrete allusion was immediate. 
"I will stick it out, sir," he said, and he did. 

Hazing. — On account of its character as a govern- 
ment institution a great deal of publicity was given 
at one time to the alleged mistreatment of new cadets 
at West Point, and in the minds of some people an as- 
sociation grew up between military schools and hazing. 
Hazing is no more a necessity in a military school 
than in a non-military school. That has been demon- 
strated by its practical elimination from the govern- 
ment schools. As a matter of fact, I have heard of 
more brutal forms of hazing in some of the colleges 
than I have ever known to be practised in military 
schools. 

Unquestionably the greenness of the newcomer is 
emphasized at first by his utter unfamiliarity with 
military customs and requirements, and undoubtedly 



MILITARY SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 105 

this mental awkwardness furnishes a strong tempta- 
tion to the upper classmen to have fun at the new 
man's expense. 

The opportunity should be given for this first awk- 
wardness to wear off before the older cadets appear on 
the scene. 

After all, however, hazing must be controlled largely 
by the sentiment of the cadets themselves. Doubt- 
less in some of its milder forms it has proved bene- 
ficial. I remember a case that once came to my notice 
of a new boy who walked over from the hotel per- 
mitting his mother to carry his suit-case. I learned 
afterward that some of the upper classmen had occu- 
pied this young man's leisure time for several days 
afterward in making him carry his suit-case up and 
down the stairs of his barracks. 

Undoubtedly they taught him a lesson in gallantry 
that could not have been so effectively imparted 
through more official channels. But boys as a rule 
do not show much discretion in these things and any 
latitude is apt to be abused. Real esprit de corps is 
not cultivated by hazing and much more harm than 
good results from its practise, for the bully takes ref- 
uge under such a system and is protected by it. 

The discipline of the conceited and stubborn is the 
excuse usually advanced for the practise of hazing, 
but the legitimate use of military discipline and the 
traditions of the school are effective with the majority 
of such boys, and it is better to drop from the school 
those exceptional cases in which military discipline is 
not effective than to permit hazing in any form. 

^here is really less excuse for hazing in a military 



106 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

school than in any other. If the discipline of the school 
can not command the new cadets' respect without being 
reinforced by hazing, the discipline is not of the best 
sort. 

I have found that even invariable dismissal of of- 
fenders will not control hazing, but that it is necessary 
in addition to cultivate a sentiment against it among 
the cadets themselves. Even then interference with 
new cadets will occur, but it will be sporadic at least 
and not a practise. For ten years I have not known a 
case that was in the slightest degree serious, although 
it has been necessary from time to time to dismiss ca- 
dets for this offense. 

I believe such in general is the experience of the 
best military schools, and that for the most part they 
are as free from hazing as any institution can be in 
which live red-blooded boys are gathered together. 
The rules of the school generally prescribe not only 
that no tricks or pranks shall be played on the new 
cadet, but also that no service shall be required or ac- 
cepted of him. 

Combinations Most Serious Menace to Discipline. 
— Every school at one time or another in its history 
has had to deal with the concerted action of students 
to disobey a regulation or to show disapproval of some 
official action. The discipline of the school is forever 
influenced by the stand it takes in such crises. Espe- 
cially is this the case in a military school. If the boys 
feel that they can awe the authorities by mere show 
of numbers and that the numerical strength of those 
committing an offense can tie the hands of the school 



MILITARY SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 107 

in inflicting a suitable penalty, there will be endless 
trouble and discipline will become to a large extent 
a farce. Such issues of course should be prevented 
by all possible means and every opportunity should be 
given for the presentation of just grievances; but if 
such crises come there is but one way to deal with 
them. The school must rule, not the student. 

The only serious difficulty of this kind at Culver 
occurred very early in my experience as commandant 
of cadets. Two cadets had been dismissed for going 
beyond bounds after night. One was a very popular 
fellow. They were to leave on an evening train. That 
evening in the half-hour recreation period immediately 
after supper one hundred and four cadets, in order to 
show their disapproval, left the grounds and went to 
the depot to see the dismissed cadets take their de- 
parture. At call to quarters their absence was reported. 
A far-off sound of yelling in the direction of the depot 
gave a clue to their whereabouts. A hurried ride 
brought me to the young mutineers. At first there 
was a tendency under cover of the darkness to dis- 
regard the command to come to attention and "fall in," 
and it was necessary by riding among them to dis- 
perse groups that were apparently trying to get to- 
gether and decide what next move would have the 
backing of the crowd. When men were called by 
name, however, their training promptly asserted itself 
and discipline finally prevailed. The one hundred and 
four cadets were formed and marched back to barracks 
in fairly good order. There were some very fine boys 
in that escapade, and yet there were some very vital 



108 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

principles involved. Only one thing seemed possible 
to me under the circumstances: the dismissal of the 
offenders. 

Under military discipline a combination to show dis- 
approval of the official action of the authorities is a 
most serious offense, and, under the rules, punishable 
by dismissal; also, under the rules of the school, ab- 
sence from the grounds after night was punishable by 
dismissal. These hundred and four cadets had been 
guilty of both offenses, and the two cadets who had 
been dismissed had been guilty of but one offense. 
If these hundred and four were not dismissed the 
precedent of safety in numbers for almost any breach 
of discipline seemed inevitable. 

Culver was a young school then: one hundred and 
four was just half of its enrolment. It seemed ruin 
either to dismiss or not to dismiss. On the return to 
barracks before breaking ranks the cadets were told 
of the decision to recommend their dismissal to the 
superintendent. They were then ordered to quarters 
under arrest. They went quietly, stunned by the sud- 
den realization of the seriousness of the escapade. The 
superintendent forwarded the recommendation of dis- 
missal to the trustees, and their reply was laconic 
and to the point: "There is nothing else to do. If 
the boys are to run the school we had best discontinue 
it at once. It would be better to use our buildings 
for barns and fill them with hay than to try to run a 
school that way." And so the hundred and four were 
sent home. Some of the parents sadly agreed with 
the school that it v/as the only thing to do, some said 
nothing and some were very indignant. 



MILITARY SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 109 

Trying days followed. The newspapers published 
sensational accounts of the affair. The school was 
condemned for high-handed and unsympathetic treat- 
ment of a mere boyish prank. An exception was a 
satirical but not unsympathetic little editorial that ap- 
peared in the old Chicago Record: "In these days," 
it said, "when the pranks of students range from petty 
larceny to manslaughter, it seems incredible that a 
small Indiana institution should have the temerity to 
expel one hundred and four students for merely de- 
fying the authorities and breaking the regulations of 
the school. We refuse to believe it until we have more 
convincing evidence. . . ." 

An indignation meeting of parents was held in Chi- 
cago and lawsuits were threatened. The school, how- 
ever, stood its ground. Later on many of the cadets 
having good records whom it was certain had no part 
in instigating the trouble, and especially cadets in their 
first year, were reinstated, but the effect of the school's 
action was not vitiated thereby, and the stand it took 
still lives in the traditions of the school and is referred 
to by cadets as the "big fire." 



CHAPTER VII 

REWARDS AND PENALTIES 

THE awards afforded by the military school are 
effective because they appeal to every boy's am- 
bition and because many of them are such as every 
boy may win. The penalties owe their effectiveness 
to the fact that they are peculiarly impersonal. 

Foremost of incentives to boys in the military 
schools are the opportunities for promotion. To be- 
come even a corporal stirs a boy's pride and ambition 
as does no other experience in school life. I do not 
except even the winning of his school's athletic em- 
blem. The one means an achievement in a single phase 
of the school's activities; the other takes into consid- 
eration practically every attribute of the boy. The 
one is an emblem of service rendered in a single field ; 
the other is an emblem of service to be rendered in 
connection with every phase of the whole school life. 
The chevron carries with it not honor alone, but a 
great deal of responsibility. 

Other Rewards for Good Discipline.— The award- 
ing of a collar device which may be worn by any cadet 
who has achieved certain standards of efficiency works 
amazingly well. It is surprising how boys will strive 
for a little thing of that sort. 

It has been utilized at Culver with gratifying results 
110 



MILITARY SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 111 

in the matter of carriage. For a long time it was noted 
that many cadets, when out of ranks and not under 
official supervision, relapsed into careless ways of 
standing, sitting and walking, and that if this were 
overcome to a large degree in the first year, there was 
a tendency to backslide in the second year, when the 
novelty had worn off. Especially was this tendency 
noticeable among a certain class of old cadets, who 
felt that they had no chance of promotion. 

The rule was made that a cadet must acquire and 
maintain a good set-up at all times before he could be 
permitted to wear the school insignia on the collar of 
his tiniform. That rule has resulted in one of the most 
uniformly well set-up corps of cadets I have ever seen. 

To offset the demerits assigned for breaches of dis- 
cipline there is a system of merits ; these merits be- 
ing assigned for "best rooms" at Sunday morning in- 
spection, "best room" at daily inspections for the week, 
"neatest personal appearance" in his company, "no 
lates" for a week. It is surprising how effective these 
demerits are in helping the system of discipline to 
"work both ways." 

If rewards and incentives and interest would accom- 
plish results in every instance it would be highly de- 
sirable, but such unfortunately is never the case. In 
the military school, as in the non-military school, there 
are always those who have to learn from bitter expe- 
rience: there are some who have to be given the ex- 
treme penalty of dismissal, and some who have to be 
dropped at vacations and between sessions. 

Assignment of Demerits and Penalties. — There 



112 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

are many things for which the cadet may receive de- 
merits that are not found in the regulations of the 
civilian school. A fleck of dust on his clothes at a 
meal formation, heels of his shoes not shined, a half 
second's tardiness in getting into his section at a class 
period, towel out of place in his room, failure to sit 
erect, etc., are but a few of the things to which the 
cadet is required to give attention. 

Charges of a serious nature or those reflecting on 
the character of a cadet are made direct to the com- 
mandant of cadets, but delinquencies of a less serious 
character are entered on what is known as the guard 
sheet and are published daily, so that each cadet re- 
ported may have the opportunity of "answering" his 
report. No demerits are assigned even for a minor 
offense until the cadet is given a hearing. He is re- 
quired to answer his reports whether they are correct 
or not. 

Each cadet answers his reports to the commandant 
of cadets or to the tactical officer in charge of his 
company. All reports of a serious character are re- 
ferred to the superintendent. The cadet states his 
excuse if he has one, or else states that the report is 
correct. If the excuse seems good the report is re- 
moved. The following copy of a daily guard sheet 
will give an idea of the many details of personal con- 
duct for which the cadet is held strictly accountable : 



MILITARY SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 113 

A SPECIMEN DISCIPLINE SHEET 
Guard Sheet, December 1, 191 — 

CADET REPORTED REPORT REPORTER 

Adams Talking in class James 

Abbott Chair out of place second C. P Capt. Hall 

Baker, C Late reveille Baker, O. D. 

Camp Dust on wardrobe shelf Capt. Hall 

Dean Slouching fifth class period Swope 

Gahns Putting water in fellow cadet's bed. . . Capt. Hall 

Hansen Sleeping during study hours Capt. Hall 

Huston Allowing men to trifle while marching 

them to guard mount Capt. Rife, O. C. 

limes Laughing at attention drill Sloan 

Johnson Not writing weekly home letter Abbott 

Kaylor Visiting without permission during 

study hours Rider 

Lambe Inattention at drill Atkins 

Lewis No cuflfs chapel formation Kurty 

Meyer Clothing not properly arranged in 

wardrobe Brown 

Nester Not complying promptly with sen- 
tinel's orders Capt. Rife, O. C. 

Simms Late class period Baker, O. D. 

Steeger Neglect as sentinel in allowing cadets 

to call from window Capt. Smith 

Taylor, E Dust in barrel of rifle Capt. Bruce 

Taylor, J Late drill Baker O. D. 

Thompson .. .Reading magazine during study 

hours Capt. Byron 

Vestal Bed carelessly made Guy 

Ward Cap out of place at police inspection Madden 

Williams Absent chapel Baker, O. D. 

Heels of shoes not shined Hunt 

Wood Elbows on table mess Lyle 

Wright Table in disorder Capt. Hall 

Spots on blouse Thorp 



114 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

The Cadet's Word Is Never Questioned. — My own 
experience has been limited to schools in which the 
honor system is in effect, and it seems to me that any 
other spirit is incompatible with the application of mili- 
tary training and ideals. The standard of the cadet 
and the gentleman is the accepted one. The officer 
never questions the cadet's word. As a result there 
is seldom an attempt to deceive him, and very little 
in the way of specious or trivial excuses. If there 
is a conflict between the statement of the reporting 
officer and the cadet, the cadet is required to answer 
his report in writing, and the reporting officer to make 
his endorsement also in writing, in order that both may 
be stated with careful exactness. The great care that is 
exercised to insure justice in the administration of dis- 
cipline, the emphasis that is placed on truthfulness and 
the sense of personal responsibility that is developed 
in the cadet are the valuable features of the military 
system in securing the boy's cooperation in governing 
himself, which, after all, is the essential thing. 

Extra Duty. — The demerits the cadet receives are 
summed up once each week. If he has more than a 
given number he is required to walk an hour during 
his recreation for each demerit in excess of the stated 
limit. A happy-go-lucky youngster from Denver told 
me that he figured that he walked home and back in 
the course of his first year. He got more out of it, 
however, than merely healthful exercise. He devel- 
oped his character as sturdily as he did his calves. 
It may be said that the large majority of cadets man- 
age to keep well within the prescribed number of de- 
merits, and to spend their recreation more pleasantly 
than in walking extra duty. 



MILITARY SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 115 

Reports for untidiness mean an extra inspection dur- 
ing recreation; reports for slouching carry with them 
fifteen minutes of daily setting-up drill for a week. 
In fact, the penalty is of a corrective character wher- 
ever possible. If a cadet receives over a stated number 
of demerits for a term he is subject to being dropped 
for deficiency in discipline. 

Procedure in Serious Cases of Discipline. — Some 
serious breaches of discipline carry with them special 
penalties, such as a large assignment of extra duty, 
confinement to room or limits, reduction to ranks if 
an officer, and in extreme cases, dismissal. In such 
cases the cadet is tried by a court martial consisting 
of officers of the faculty and at least one cadet. He 
is represented by a member of the faculty, whom he 
is permitted to select. His case is reviewed and the 
action of the court approved or disapproved by the 
superintendent of the school. This is immeasurably 
superior to the passing of judgment on a boy in such 
serious cases by one man, however competent and ex- 
perienced he may be. The whole proceeding carries 
with it dignity and impressiveness and at the same 
time an opportunity for dispassionate judgment that 
is most effective. 

The following is the report of the proceedings of 
an actual court martial, the name having been changed 
and the evidence omitted : 

CASE ONE 

Proceedings of a general court martial, which con- 
vened at Culver, Indiana, pursuant to the following 
order : 



116 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 



Special Order No. 84 

May 15, 191— 
A general court martial is hereby ordered to meet 
in the faculty room of the Culver Military Academy 
at 4 p. M. on this date or as soon thereafter as prac- 
ticable, for the trial of such cadets as may properly 
be brought before it. The court will sit without re- 
gard to hours. 

Detail for the court: 

Captain J. Q. Adams, U. S. A., Retd. 
Captain J. F. Grant, C. M. A. 
Lieutenant M. A. Andrews, C. M. A. 
Lieutenant H. W. Baur, C. M. A. 
Cadet Captain A. O. Parker, C. M. A. 
Captain H. F. Noble, C M. A., Judge Advocate. 
By Order of the Superintendent. 
R, Rossow, C. M. A., Captain and Adjutant. 

The court met pursuant to the foregoing order at 
4 p. M., May 15, 191— 

Present all members of the court and the Judge Ad- 
vocate. 

The court then proceeded to the trial of Cadet L. 
T. Thorne, private Company B, who, having been 
brought before the court, introduced Captain G. H. 
Crandall, C. M. A., as counsel. 

R. F. Barnes was duly sworn as reporter. 

The order convening the court was read to the ac- 
cused and he was asked if he objected to being tried 
by any person named therein, to which he replied in 
the negative. 

The members of the court and the Judge Advocate 
were then duly sworn. 

The accused was then arraigned upon the following 
charges and specifications : 



MILITARY SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 117 

Charge I. Off limits in violation of Article 86 of 
the Regulations of the Culver Military Academy. 

Specification 1. In that the said Cadet L. T. Thorne, 
private Company B, did go off limits without permis- 
sion. This at the Culver Military Academy on the 
afternoon of May 14, 191 — 

Specification 2. In that the said Cadet L. T. Thorne, 
private Company B, having no boating permit from 
his parents on file in the Commandant's office and 
knowing that such was required in order to go boating, 
did wilfully go on the lake in a sailboat. 

Charge II. Attempting to mislead an ofificer while 
on official duty in violation of Article 85 of the Regu- 
lations of the Culver Military A_cademy. 

Specification 1. In that the said Cadet L. T. Thorne, 
private Company B, having gone on the lake in a sail- 
boat and having failed to return to the Academy in 
time for parade, did apply to the assistant surgeon to 
be excused absence from parade on the ground of ill- 
ness. This at the Culver Military Academy on the 
afternoon of May 14, 191 — 

Specification 2. In that the said Cadet L. T. Thorne, 
private Company B, did feign illness to the ofificer of 
the day and to the assistant surgeon. This at the Cul- 
ver Military Academy on the afternoon of May 14, 
191— 

To which charges and specifications the accused 
pleaded as f oUov/s : 

To the first specification. Charge I : "Guilty." 

To the second specification. Charge I : "Guilty." 

To the first charge : "Guilty." 

To the first specification, Charge II : "Not guilty." 

To the second specification. Charge II : "Not guilty." 

To the second charge : "Not guilty." 

(The record of the evidence is necessarily omitted 
on account of lack of space. The assistant surgeon of 
the academy, the officer of the day and several cadets 



118 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

were called as witnesses. The evidence of cadets 
showed that the accused had exerted himself to a con- 
siderable degree in rowing back to the academy in the 
hot sun ; also that he had complained of feeling ill be- 
fore it became apparent that he would be absent from 
parade. The testimony of the assistant surgeon was to 
the effect that he had administered an emetic to relieve 
the distress of which the cadet complained, but found 
nothing in the stomach which would account for the 
cadet's illness, but that it was possible for one who 
had overtaxed himself to feel sick at the stomach even 
though he had no indigestible food therein. The evi- 
dence indicated further that the cadet knew that the 
real cause of his absence from parade was not illness 
of which he complained, but his unauthorized boating 
trip. Hence he was properly held guilty in attempting 
to mislead in the latter instance, but exonerated from 
the charge of feigning illness.) 

The accused, the reporter and the Judge Advocate 
then withdrew and the court was closed, and finds the 
accused, Cadet L. T. Thorne, private Company B : 

Of the first specification, Charge I : "Guilty." 

Of the second specification. Charge I : "Guilty." 

Of the first charge : "Guilty." 

Of the first specification. Charge II : "Guilty," 

Of the second specification. Charge II : "Not guilty." 

Of the second charge : "Guilty." 

The Judge Advocate was then recalled and the court 
reopened. The Judge Advocate stated that he had no 
evidence of previous conviction to offer. 

The Judge Advocate then withdrew and the court 
was closed, and sentences him, Cadet L. T. Thorne, 
private Company B, to be dismissed from the Culver 
Military Academy. 

The Judge Advocate was then recalled and the court 
at 5 :30 p. m. adjourned sine die. 

(Signed) J. Q. Adams, U. S. A., President. 
H. F. Noble, Judge Advocate. 



MILITARY SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 119 



Action of Reviewing Authority 

Headquarters, Culver Military Academy, 

Culver, Indiana, May 15, 191— 
In the foregoing case of Cadet L. T. Thorne, pri- 
vate Company B, the findings of the court are ap- 
proved. It is one of the most highly prized traditions 
of the academy that the cadet's word may be accepted 
without question. Yet consideration must be given to 
the fact that this cadet is in his first year in the corps 
of cadets, and is not yet fully imbued with the spirit 
of the school. Furthermore, with the exception of 
the present offense his record in discipline and atten- 
tion to duty have been excellent. The sentence is 
therefore approved, but is commuted to one hundred 
hours of penalty duty and confinement to the academy 
grounds until the same has been performed. 

By Order of the Superintendent. 

Note. — The superintendent may lessen, but may not 
increase, the penalty assigned by a court martial. Ex- 
cept in cases of dismissal or reduction of an officer 
to ranks he may not change the form of the punish- 
ment. 



CHAPTER VIII 

IDEALS OF THE MILITARY SCHOOL 

THERE are some very intelligent people who de- 
cry military training for boys on the ground that 
it breeds militarism, I have seen their views change 
after actually observing the work of a good military 
school. The fine distinction that Bishop Fallows has 
made between militancy and militarism is well exem- 
plified in the ideals of such a school. Military train^ 
ing of boys properly conducted gives them the true 
fighting spirit, the spirit that every man must have 
who renders effective service in a good cause, whether 
it be on the military or social firing line. The uni- 
form of the best type of military school stands for 
that sort of spirit — for chivalry and for fair play, not 
for injustice or oppression of the weak. 

The military instinct is natural to most boys, and 
it may be utilized to teach them valuable lessons of 
loyalty, patriotism and discipline without making them 
bloodthirsty or warlike. Several years of military 
training is usually quite sufficient to gratify a boy's 
curiosity and satisfy his desires for military life. He is 
then content to enter upon commercial or professional 
pursuits, a citizen prepared to serve his country either 
in peace or war. He has gained some small concep- 
tion of what the horrors of war may be ; he has some 

120 



MILITARY SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 121 

taste of the arduous side of military life, and he will 
be logically a greater lover of peace than the boy not 
so trained, and a most stable citizen when the hysteria 
of war threatens the nation. 

Preparation for Citizenship. — If one doubts the 
value of military training in equipping the boy for 
civil pursuits he has but to examine the roster of eleves 
and graduates of those older military institutions such 
as Norwich, the Virginia Military Institute and the 
Citadel of South Carolina, and to note how many of 
these men have achieved distinction as lawyers, doctors, 
statesmen, ministers, engineers and in fact in every walk 
of life. Even younger schools, such as Culver, show 
a roster of men who, though but barely in the arena, 
are for the most part holding positions of unusual 
trust and responsibility for men of their age. West 
Point, an institution designed purely for the training 
of the professional soldier, can point to its graduates 
who have entered civil life with no less pride than to 
its roll of distinguished soldiers. In this connection 
I quote from a paper entitled "Education from a Mili- 
tary Viewpoint," contributed to the North American 
Review in 1908 by Colonel Charles W. Earned : "West 
Point has been in existence one hundred and five years. 
During that period it has produced four thousand five 
hundred and seventy-one graduates, of whom two 
thousand three hundred and seventy-one, more than 
one-half, had entered civil life up to 1902. Ignoring 
its military record of four hundred and sixty general 
officers, it has contributed to the forward impulse of 
the world one president of the United States, one 
president of the Confederate States, three presidential 



122 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

candidates, two vice-presidential candidates, one am- 
bassador, fourteen ministers plenipotentiary, twenty- 
seven members of the United States Senate and House, 
eight presidential electors, sixteen governors of states 
and territories, one bishop, fourteen judges, seventeen 
mayors of cities, forty-six presidents and fourteen re- 
gents and chancellors of colleges and universities, four- 
teen chief engineers of states, eighty-seven presidents 
of railroads and corporations, sixty-three chief engi- 
neers of railroads and public works, eight bank pres- 
idents, two hundred attorneys and counselors at law, 
twenty clergymen, fourteen physicians, a hundred and 
twenty-two merchants, seventy-seven manufacturers, 
thirty editors, a hundred and seventy-nine authors, be- 
sides artists, architects, farmers, planters and many 
others belonging to useful trades and professions. 
Three of its alumni are in charge of the greatest en- 
gineering work of history, the Panama Canal, and one 
is reorganizing the police force of the second city in 
the world." 

The Spirit of Democracy. — A distinct advantage 
possessed by the military school is its spirit of democ- 
racy. Adventitious distinctions of wealth and social 
position are laid aside when the boy dons his uniform. 
From then on only merit counts. Spending money 
is limited by regulations to a modest sum, and even 
if parents fail to cooperate with the rules and send 
extra spending money, there is little opportunity for 
its use. Rooms are the same for all cadets and are 
plain and simple in their furnishings, while the uni- 
form serves as an effective check to lavish dressing. 

In an article on Famous American Schools, which 



MILITARY SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 123 

appeared some years ago in one of the magazines, a 
master of one of the schools described was quoted 
as saying: "We do not exactly refuse the son of the 
blacksmith, but he would not be comfortable here." 
No matter from what humble circumstances a boy 
may come, if he has the right stuff in him he may 
win recognition in the military school. If the son 
of the blacksmith were the best man, he would, in the 
course of two or three years, become a cadet officer, 
and the son of the millionaire would render him re- 
spect and obedience. If, on the other hand, the son 
of the millionaire were the best man, he would be the 
cadet officer and the blacksmith's son would respect 
him, not for his wealth, but because of the real stuff 
that was in him. They would both be awkward enough 
at first. Military regulations and drill would be as 
unfamiliar to the one as to the other. While one boy 
was having some rough edges polished off the other 
would probably be losing a little self-conceit and ac- 
quiring a new conception of what constitutes real 
merit. Their "plebe" year of probation would be 
spent in an atmosphere in which no boy with honesty 
of purpose and real manliness need feel uncomfort- 
able and its finish would find each "tub standing on 
its own bottom," and each boy receiving only such 
recognition or promotion as his own efforts and worth 
entitled him to receive. Under such a system the crit- 
icism that private schools breed snobbery need not 
apply. 

The Ideal of Service. — The ideal of service is ever 
before the cadet. He must work for the general good 
of his squad, his company, his battalion. His pride 



124 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

in his corps or the subdivision of which he is an im- 
mediate member is always an incentive to him to put 
forth more effort than he would be inclined to make 
for purely selfish reasons. If he becomes a cadet of- 
ficer, he must learn that merely to exercise command 
is insufficient; he must serve the best interests of 
those under him. He must make some personal sac- 
rifices of time and pleasure in order to do so. li his 
conception of an office is merely the satisfaction of 
ranking others, of wearing insignia, of obtaining priv- 
ileges, he is not apt to hold it long. Sooner or later 
will come the report for neglect of duty and the order 
reducing him to ranks. 

The ideal of service in military life was the theme 
of a brief and informal talk that President Wilson 
made to the cadets of the Culver Black Horse Troop 
in the course of his campaign for the presidency in 
1912. A detachment of these young troopers had rid- 
den fifteen miles to a neighboring town to hear Mr. 
Wilson speak. At the conclusion of his formal ad- 
dress they escorted him to the train. At the depot, 
standing in his automobile, Mr. Wilson beckoned the 
cadets to ride in close about him, and after thanking 
them in gracious and friendly fashion for the courtesy 
shown him, said : 

"... I am always glad to see the uniform worn 
in connection with education. To me it has a deeper 
meaning than as an attribute to war. It means disci- 
pline, of course, but in addition it signifies that a man 
is not living for himself, but for the social life at large. 
I am a great advocate of international peace. Because 
you wear the uniform I do not think you are less so. 



MILITARY SCHOOLS IN AMERICA 125 

But I do not think we will ever have world-wide peace 
until we can look upon it with the splendor that we 
look upon war. There is something wonderfully ap- 
pealing to our natures in war. We hear of mothers 
hanging swords and muskets of their sons on the walls 
so that they may constantly see them. We do not hear 
of any one hanging as an ornament of a household 
any of the symbols of peace, such as a ledger, a yard- 
stick, a pick or a shovel. The reason for this is that 
man supports himself with these implements, but he 
is doing a service for some one else when he is using 
a sword or a rifle in battle ; and modern people seem 
to hold a service they do to help themselves below the 
things they do to help others. So what I want you 
youngsters to remember is that you owe a duty to so- 
ciety which is above any interest you can have in self ; 
that you do the greatest good to the world when you 
live in it to serve your fellow men," 



The 
Manual-Training High School 



By Milo H. Stuart 



The Manual-Training High School 



CHAPTER I 

PROVINCE OF THE PUBLIC MANUAL-TRAINING 
HIGH SCHOOL 

WHEN Arnold Bennett had visited this country, 
he hastened to give us the volume, Your United 
States. He was acting on the belief that one sees many 
distinguishing characteristics more clearly at first sight 
than ever afterward. There is some truth in this. 
Unfamiliarity affords quite a vantage point when it 
comes to looking at a thing without prejudice. But 
it would not be worth my while to assume any fine air 
of impartiality toward the subject in hand. You 
would discover before you had read three pages that 
I love the public high school of the manual-training 
type with all my heart and soul. This is hardly a po- 
litic thing to say at the outset. The attitude of being 
on a pedestal and looking down on one's subject seems 
so much more learned. But fourteen years of intimate 
connection with such a high school can hardly be ex- 
pected to leave the mind unprejudiced. 

Close Kinship of Great Schools. — Now that I have 
confessed to an enthusiasm for a high school, I suppose 
you expect me to write about the beauty of such an "in- 

129 



130 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

stitution" in a democracy, about the modern develop- 
ments in buildings and equipment, about enlarged cur- 
ricula, and all the other points of which we boast when 
we are in the mood. But nothing could be further 
from my mind. Doctor Frank Crane, in speaking of 
his love for the church, says simply that he loves his 
own denomination, not for the ways in which it differs 
from other Christian denominations but for those 
points which it has in common. "My ideal church," he 
says, "is called The Church of the Greatest Common 
Divisor. . . . Inside of this Greatest Common Di- 
visor grow all the sweet flowers of the religious feel- 
ing. Outside are its baptized animosities." Certainly 
it is true that the cardinal beliefs and practises com- 
mon to all Christian churches constitute a likeness 
beside which the differences are less than petty. All 
our real schools, likewise, are of close kin. The 
essential elements of a great school are much the 
same, whether it be public or private, scholastic or 
trade. For a school worth the name is not build- 
ing nor equipment, nor even course of study. It is 
people. Wherever boys and girls are drawn to a 
real man or woman and there learn the beauty of 
soul and mind, or useful accomplishments, there is 
a great school. It is nowhere else. Building and ap- 
paratus are mere clutter except they be dominated by a 
strong and wholesome personality. 

"New" High Schools Old as Human Nature. — 
This might seem trite, but it isn't. We do not half 
realize that no juggling of the course of study, no en- 
larging it, can by any magic change the simple univer- 
sal law that teaching is a contact of life with life, and 



MANUAL-TRAINING HIGH SCHOOL 131 

that wherever men and women have been really edu- 
cated, there lingers the memory of a great teacher. My 
love for the high school is rooted in the intimate knowl- 
edge of honest men and women who teach, and of 
younger folk who learn. The time when Doctor Ar- 
nold taught Tom Brown and his comrades is not so long 
ago ; the place is not so far away. It is not so distant 
to that little schoolhouse in the "edge of the sweet pine 
woods" where Dominie Jameson taught and of which 
Ian Maclaren writes : "Perhaps I ought to be ashamed 
of that school-house, but yet it had its own distinction, 
for scholars were born there, and now and then to this 
day some famous man will come and stand in the de- 
serted playground for a space." Our manual-training 
schools are not so new after all, when the heart-life of 
them is world-old. The nature of our most improved 
cosmopolitan high schools is simply human nature. 

Distinctive Atmosphere of Schools. — And yet be- 
cause all schools are the same in their deepest elements, 
we are not to infer that they are monotonously alike. 
On the contrary, the very fact that they are each 
dominated by personality means that every one has a 
distinct atmosphere. It is an interesting thing to a sen- 
sitive person to visit them and try to define the intan- 
gible spirit that hovers about each school. It is like 
reading the originals from which novels are taken. 
Some are private and so secluded that we fancy we 
have a book of Hawthorne wherein the characters are 
few, are closely studied, and are usually worth the 
study ; others have as distinct flavor of romance in all 
their social life as have the pages of Scott ; some are so 
full of beautiful dreams and ideals of living, so far re- 



132 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

moved from the practical, that we are reminded of 
poor, improvident, lovable Oliver Goldsmith. 

High School Like Novel of Dickens. — But the 
public high school could hardly be classed as any one 
of these. Rather, it is a novel of Dickens — full of 
faces; faces, too, that vary as much as even Dickens 
could ever imagine. There are David Copperfields 
ready to believe and be taught; Oliver Twists with 
pathetic home stories; little Sissy Jupes with dreamy 
eyes ; wholesome Agnes Warfields ; spoiled Steerf orths 
who know too much of the world; yes, and there are 
Aunt Betsy Trotwoods who look the part of severe 
schoolma'ams and hide hearts big enough for any boy 
to walk into; Doctor Strongs with great faith in men 
in the making — it would take a winter evening to name 
the faces which come peering into the windows of the 
mind when the word high school is mentioned to any 
one who has lived very long in one of them. 

It may be that you have not been in the habit of 
thinking of our high schools as "just people." They 
are not usually presented in that light in our magazines. 
But the reason for that is clear. Those who are at 
work in these schools, those to whom the visions of 
faces naturally come, do not have much time for writ- 
ing. They have to leave that to casual observers. The 
result usually is that some one writes from a height of 
criticism so lofty that, as he looks down at the school, 
the people have vanished or become specks, and he be- 
holds only the roof and walls of a state-owned insti- 
tution. That's the reason, too, why these same writers 
solve all the high-school problems without difficulty. 



MANUAL-TRAINING HIGH SCHOOL 133 

It's so much easier to know what to do with a brick 
wall than with Tommy Traddles ! 

Reasons why High Schools are Intensely Human. 
— But if you approach on the level ground and gain a 
first-hand intimate knowledge, I believe you will find a 
public high school one of the least "institutional" and 
most intensely human projects that has entered into the 
heart of man for a long while. They have many faults, 
these schools, but a lack of being in touch with boys 
and girls is not one of them. They have no chance 
at all to acquire that vice. They could not become se- 
clusive if they wished. The first requisite for a se- 
cluded school is the power of selecting desirable candi- 
dates for admission. This the public high school can 
not do. Even the old ironclad rule that those entering 
must have completed the grammar grades is now being 
often broken in the interest of overgrown boys behind 
in their work. But that is not half the story. If a high 
school were expected to reach only those boys and 
girls who apply for admission, its contact with life 
would be divided in two. Contenting itself with those 
who naturally come to it, it might devote its whole time 
to cherishing within its walls time-honored practises 
of teaching, to achieving standards of scholarship and 
accomplishment, to fostering traditions of honor. De- 
votion to just those things has given the world some of 
its greatest centers of training — ^the Rugbys, the Etons, 
the Phillips-Exeter academies. It would seem that to 
attain these virtues is exalted enough purpose for any 
school. It is high enough, higher in truth, than the 
public school, or any other, may fully reach for some 
time yet ; but it is not the full task assigned. The pub- 



134 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

lie high school must not only serve those who come to 
it, but must reach out to those who do not come. Let 
a man among us forget this and for an instant take 
pride in the high standard of his school, he is sure to be 
humbled by the words, "Yes, but it isn't reaching half 
the people for whom it was intended !" No standards 
of scholarship, nor of accomplishment, no traditions of 
honor, even, can enable any public high school to ful- 
fill its purpose unless those standards and traditions 
be translated into varied enough language to speak to 
the hearts of the children of its community. That is 
why our problems are so intensely alive, embodied in 
boys and girls. That's why we keep aware all the time 
of the truth of David Harum's remark : "There's as 
much human nature in some folks as there is in others, 
if not more." 

Province to Reach all Boys and Girls.— We have 
said that the high school is expected to reach the boys 
and girls of a community. Did it occur to you that we 
meant all of them ? It is a rather remarkable standard 
of judgment, come to think of it, to hold a school ac- 
countable for those whom it has never had. Suppose 
a school of music is turning out real musicians. It has 
high standards and is able to inspire most of its stu- 
dents to attain to them. Does anybody discount all this 
because there are many boys and girls within a small 
radius whom it is not instructing? If any privately 
endowed school is giving a group of boys superior 
training, does any one minimize that service because 
there are scores of boys in the vicinity not enrolled in 
the courses? But a public institution is different. If 
any organization shares that great glory said to accrue 



MANUAL-TRAINING HIGH SCHOOL 135 

to all servants of the state, it must be willing to bear a 
burden proportionate. The state needs to have all of 
its boys and girls trained in their teens. Taking the 
country as a whole, it has no servant other than the 
public high school to do this. It follows, then, in what 
seems a perfectly logical manner, that the responsibil- 
ity of the high school is to every boy and girl in its 
community, rather than to those who happen to be en- 
rolled in its courses. The success of any school, just as 
of any person, is to be judged by the completeness with 
which its mission is fulfilled. It is not the business of 
the music school or of any privately endowed school to 
teach everybody. But it is the province of the public 
high school — Heaven help us! — to reach for good 
every boy and girl in its community. 

Even in this age of overlapping activities, I do not 
know of any one else who claims this territory. Gen- 
erally speaking, even the church and the home are quite 
willing for the school to have it. The saloons, cigarette 
stores, gambling houses and other resorts are prepared 
to give little touches in the making of character, but 
nobody ever heard of them wishing to claim any of 
their own products. In this regard, they are models 
of self-effacement. Considering that all their time and 
energy, day and night, are devoted to the (de) forma- 
tion of character, it is really touching to see how will- 
ing they are to accord to the schools all the credit. 

Consequent Peculiar Accountability. — In accord- 
ance with this conception of its duty, it is the style just 
now to lay at the door of the public high school all of 
the failures of the present generation. The reasoning 
necessary to reach this conclusion is amazingly simple. 



136 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

If the one failing be a graduate, the delinquency is 
caused by attending the school ; if he is not a graduate 
—as happens sometimes — it is still the fault of the 
school in not having attracted him. The comical part 
of it is that we school people generally believe this just 
as much as anybody. We ourselves really think the 
public schools ought to be able to counteract any home 
and community spirit of commercialism and graft ; un- 
censored moving pictures ; vile theaters ; saloons ; gam- 
bling places ; disreputable houses ; dime novels ; daily 
papers blazing out murders, war and divorces; any 
street vulgarity ; any unhappy home conditions ; to say 
nothing about bad heredity at the outset. With morbid 
conscientiousness we blame ourselves whenever a boy 
or girl goes wrong. I remember hearing an educator, 
prominent in his time, give a touching description of a 
visit to a prison, reaching his climax with the words, 
"As I looked into the face of each criminal, I thought, 
'Some teacher, somewhere, has failed to do his duty 1' " 

But let it be said in fairness that we are equally 
quick to appropriate successes. Whenever a boy or 
girl, with whom our school has had to do, achieves 
distinction, we take to ourselves great glory. There 
are enough signal successes to keep us from growing 
melancholy, so perhaps this is as it should be. 

Manual Arts Introduced for Those not in School. 
— This feeling that the public high schools are account- 
able for the welfare of every boy and girl in a given 
community may be serio-comic. It may tend toward 
laxity on the part of some parents and of many 
churches and civic leaders. But it's at the foundation 
of a large part of the very best development of our 



MANUAL-TRAINING HIGH SCHOOL 137 

schools. It lies at the root of the whole manual-train- 
ing activity. Manual arts were not introduced prima- 
rily for the sake of the pupils who were in the schools, 
but for those who were out of them. It was an attempt 
to translate useful accomplishment into the language of 
those boys and girls to whom books do not appeal. If 
a school is growing rapidly on its vocational side, you 
may be sure those designing its courses feel full re- 
sponsibility not only for those in the school, but for 
those out of school. The point is illustrated by the old 
story of the little boy who became lost from his father 
on a crowded city street. Spying a policeman the child 
ran up to him and asked breathlessly : "Say, mister, 
have you seen any man going along without his little 
boy ?" Wherever that father was, you may be sure his 
whole activity was determined by the fact that he did 
not have his boy. Our manual-training high schools 
are trying to find their children. 

Purpose Constant Through Experimentation. — 
This view-point affords the one key to an understand- 
ing of schools of this type. They do experiment. They 
do constantly introduce new courses. They do allow 
children to choose their own studies. They do consult 
the desires of street urchins as much as of college 
professors in deciding what to teach. They do vary 
their curricula to suit individual communities. They 
do all these things and many more, not because they are 
fickle as to their own purpose, but because they are so 
entirely constant. It is the experimenting of a scientist 
who is exhausting every method to accomplish a single 
end. It is their business to change as long as one boy 
or one girl is failing because of lack of their service, 



138 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS " 

I am not sure that this is so far from ideal. I am not 
sure that it is any drawback to a school not to become 
set in a certain mold. "To change and change is life" 
is something more than poetic fancy. But, at any rate, 
this regarding a curriculum as a thing to be remolded 
constantly to meet the needs of boys and girls — yes, 
even the desires of boys and girls — is at the very core 
of our modern high-school development. 

Plight Without Help of Schools. — The comparison 
to the lost youngster might have been pressed further, 
for, literally, the children whom we are trying to reach 
are lost on the streets of our cities. They are not hunt- 
ing up policemen and asking questions, however. They 
do not know they are lost. They are the elevator boys 
and cash girls, delivery boys, proud in the possession of 
first-earned money, not as yet bothered by any visions 
of monotonous, dwarfed futures. The paths on which 
they are walking lack the first essential of a highway — 
namely, a destination. They are proud at first to be 
among laborers at all. How can they realize that most 
of them are doomed to remain among the unskilled? 
They are not necessarily the lazy nor incompetent. 
They may indeed be the most active and impatient. 
Whether our standards of scholarship are being low- 
ered to reach them will be discussed later. But, really, 
that is not the vital question. The real point at issue 
is whether what is given them in our schools is ahead 
of what they are elsewhere acquiring — these boys and 
girls who are passing through adolescence without 
training of intellect, without vision of the future, with- 
out guidance in morals — ^these boys and girls who are 



MANUAL-TRAINING HIGH SCHOOL 139 

to be citizens of our state. There is no question but the 
purpose of reaching them is worth maintaining. 

It is plain to be seen that if any one desires a selec- 
tive school, he is not interested in this type. Instead 
of exclusiveness, these manual-training high schools 
frankly seek every class. If the man is afraid for his 
boy to associate with "butcher, baker and candlestick 
maker," let him send him elsewhere. If he believes in 
democracy "only in a Pickwickian sense," he can not 
approve of the principle governing these schools. But 
let no one forget that eternal laws still hold, and that 
the character of a school, as of an individual, is not 
lowered by service. That care for human kind, which 
reaches out to every boy and girl outside, puts warmth 
of motive into daily work inside. If we wonder why 
the high schools are of late growing past all expecta- 
tion, it is but because they are forgetting themselves 
a little in trying to render a great service. 'Tis only a 
bit of that old paradox, spoken by One who knew every 
art of teaching : "He that would save life, must lose it." 



CHAPTER II 

THE PLACE OF MANUAL ARTS IN THE CURRICULUM 

E have said that it is the province of manual- 
training high schools to train all the boys and 
girls of a community; that the course of study is 
changed and developed constantly to serve this pur- 
pose; that manual-arts courses wQve introduced pri- 
marily to reach those out of school. I hope no one has 
gained the impression from this, that a manual-arts 
course is used as a kind of bait to tole a boy into school, 
much as the farmer holds an ear of corn in front of an 
untrained colt while he slips the halter on, preparatory 
to harnessing and working. But then, if some one has 
this impression, why should I wonder ? There are high 
schools which are actually doing it. Some schools, 
which pretend to have manual-training work, have 
in truth only an ear of corn as bait, and a nubbin at 
that ! This is to be expected. Everything worth imita- 
tion has its counterfeit, but that is nothing against the 
genuine — quite the opposite. Our market would never 
have been flooded with prunes mislabeled "Santa 
Clara," if the genuine Santa Clara prune had not been 
a superior variety. The essential thing is that those 
who care to know the truth may be able to tell the real 
from the imitation. 

The Most Common Imitation.— The brand of imi- 
tation already referred to is the most common. It is 

140 



MANUAL-TRAINING HIGH SCHOOL 141 

the one in which a few "stunts" in carpentry and forg- 
ing or mechanics are tacked on to the regular work and 
in no sense a part of it. The schools concerned are in 
reality of the old-time academic type. The only well- 
organized, carefully-taught courses which they offer 
are mathematical or classical. When a boy comes 
along, however, who is not of a bookish turn, they give 
him a little carpentry on the side, as a kind of anes- 
thetic to render him unconscious of pain while aca- 
demic operations are performed on him. Considering 
how agonizing some of the classical work is to certain 
temperaments, it is a mercy to administer an anes- 
thetic, only please don't tell the boy he has had a course 
in manual arts. This use of manual training as an an- 
esthetic is frequently commended on high authority, 
just as if it were a patent medicine. Not so long ago 
a professor in one of our state universities wrote : "If 
it [manual training] be the means of keeping the boy in 
the high school and of ultimately bringing him to col- 
lege, then it may be regarded as having served a good 
purpose. This, I think, is its principal function." 

Main Function, to Give Fair Chance. — -Now the 
men and women who are in earnest introducing and 
maintaining manual-arts work have a very different 
idea of its main function. The genuine manual-arts 
courses have not had their origin in any spirit of con- 
cession or compromise, but in that of simple justice. 
They are not planned to coax a boy into submitting to 
an education, but to give him a fair chance in obtain- 
ing one. To be clear, suppose we had a school of 
music. Four boys, one naturally a musician, one an 
artist, one a scholar and one a mechanic, start to at- 



142 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

tend. The musician succeeds admirably ; but the artist, 
scholar and mechanic drop out disinterested. Will any- 
one say that the three latter had a fair chance ? Now, 
without any supposition, we have had classical schools 
designed for the scholar. There have been little side 
touches of music and art, but absolutely nothing of 
building and mechanics. And that in an age of ma- 
chinery. All that a manual-training high school tries to 
do, is to organize courses which shall give boys of one 
trend of mind as fair a chance as those of another. 
This can be done only approximately, as no two boys 
are exactly alike, but the attempt to do it is revolution- 
izing our secondary education. 

Manual Arts on Same Basis as Academic Work. 
— It is evident that to give a boy of mechanical bent as 
good an education as one of classical turn, it is neces- 
sary that the mechanical course shall be as well 
planned, as complete, as difficult, as is the course in 
language, history or mathematics. That is exactly the 
basis on which these courses are organized in our best 
high schools. There is not the slightest abbreviation of 
any course formerly offered, but alongside of the aca- 
demic courses and on exactly the same credit basis, are 
courses in carpentry, mechanics, and as many other 
lines of manual arts as a given school is able to offer. 

Difference Between High School and Trade 
School. — It will be seen that this differs from a trade 
school in that the latter makes every subject bend to 
meet the needs of a certain trade, while the high school 
must needs teach the elements common to many trades, 
just as in its classical and scientific courses it teaches 
the elements common to many professions. Mechanical 



MANUAL-TRAINING HIGH SCHOOL 143 

drawing, for instance, is the alphabet of all the indus- 
tries so that a thorough course in that prepares for any 
one of them. Doctor Jordan's terse statement applies 
in this connection : "There is all the difference in the 
world between the elements of a subject and its frag- 
ments." 

Artisan. Stage of Growth. — In taking so serious a 
view of manual arts, it may be urged that we are over- 
stepping the mark ; that many boys of high-school age, 
who clamor for manual work, are destined never to 
become artisans, nor engineers, nor to be at all con- 
nected with the industries ; that therefore a little side 
play is all these boys need. But we ought to know bet- 
ter than that how to treat the adolescent stages of 
growth. Every boy who longs for manual training, 
whether he will later be an artisan or not, is one at that 
time. His need is just as real as if it were permanent. 
His educational instincts may die from lack of the 
nourishment they then crave, just as truly as if that 
were to be his food always. It's rather disastrous to 
deny water to tadpoles on the theory that they are 
going to develop legs later and will be able to hop 
around on dry land. 

Educational Value of Any Subject. — This brings 
us to a discussion of the exact educational value of the 
manual arts, — whether a course which has to do with 
training of the hand deserves a place alongside of 
courses in mathematics, English, foreign languages, 
history and the sciences. That's a formidable group 
of subjects, long tested. Many a great man bears wit- 
ness to the worlds of beauty he has discovered through 
them. It is no light thing to claim that a pet fledgling 



144 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

deserves a home amid such a family. But after all, 
we are not looking in the right direction to tell the com- 
parative educational worth of a subject. We should 
be observing not the studies, but the boys who take 
them, — seeing the comparative effect in the develop- 
ment of life. The depth of a study, so far as its educa- 
tional value is concerned, is determined not by the sub- 
ject-matter, but by the mind which studies it. The end 
sought is not to give human lodging to any set of 
truths, however beautiful, but to transform the human 
mind into a thing which is itself true and beautiful. 
However much we may fail to apply it, we all believe 
this in theory. But a live boy is so apt to tangle up the 
threads of our theories, and it's hard to straighten them 
out again. 

Boy's Longing a Clue to His Need. — Still, it's easy 
in the presence of a boy in the teens to believe Mary 
Skrine's remark in Bedesman 4 : "We are not all heads, 
like carrots." Surely there's the physical in a boy and 
our anxious hearts tell us there's a moral side as well. 
We needn't go harping about the fact that we need to 
develop all three sides: physical, mental and moral. 
The thing to do is to see if we can find something 
which will grip the whole boy and help shape him 
aright. I can imagine no better way to get a clue to such 
a subject than by the boy's own appetite. Strange, — we 
eat greens in the spring-time because we crave them; 
later we find out we needed them then. We devour 
sweets as children, because we like them, afterward 
we find they were our proper nourishment. Yet we 
can not grasp the idea that there may be a connection 



MANUAL-TRAINING HIGH SCHOOL 145 

between what a boy craves and what his whole system 
needs. 

The experiment of giving him his heart's desire has 
been tried, however. The resuhs are before us. May 
we try to set forth briefly a few of the distinctive 
things which this work has done and is doing for boys ? 
Perhaps the best way is by a few actual instances of in- 
dividual boys. Obviously, names and exact locations 
must be omitted, but please be assured that it would 
be possible to locate every one, and, moreover, to multi- 
ply instances, not by the score, but by the hundred. 

It Does Reach Boys Otherwise on the Street. — 
In the first place, the manual-arts instruction is reach- 
ing a vast number of boys who would otherwise go 
through their teens without training. It is difficult to 
demonstrate to just what extent this is true, but the 
fact that the instruction of manual training is coinci- 
dent with the phenomenal growth in high-school attend- 
ance throughout the country is at least significant. In 
practically every case where manual training is intro- 
duced, the number of boys in the school increases at a 
bound. The simple announcement that a new class in 
applied mechanics would be organized, if enough boys 
wished it, brought to one of our technical schools 
twelve boys, no one of whom was in attendance at any 
school. These twelve not only completed the year of 
mechanical training, but took in connection with it 
English, applied mathematics and mechanical drawing. 
At the end of the year, eight of these boys were em- 
ployed by manufacturing establishments in the city at 
from twenty cents to thirty-two cents per hour. Out 



146 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

of that eight, six preferred to return to school the next 
fall rather than continue in the positions which they 
could still have held. They had caught a vision of the 
possibility of training in exactly what they wished to 
do. They were willing to work in shop a half-day — 
for that particular group was given a half -day of shop 
at a time — and spend the other half-day poring over 
studies which would have been distasteful had they 
not seen the practical bearing. That class has grown 
into a department, and two teachers are spending all 
their time giving the mechanical work, alone, to boys 
who had quit school entirely. The standard of their 
work and discipline is not merely passable — it is a 
point of strength in the school. The boys who meet 
them gain fresh purpose. Whole high-school classes 
literally brought in from the street are, of course, the 
exception. But individual boys are not. 

Cases of Retreaters. — Marcus was a great lubberly 
fellow in the second year of high school. He was 
failing in half his work, but he did not especially care. 
He had long since ceased to expect success for himself. 
He entered the class in forging. It struck him as a 
thing he could do. He made an umbrella rack which 
was the best piece of forging done in the class. He 
took it home, proud. He was surprised that he could 
star in anything. He began to try in his other work, 
and from that time on, his card was clear of failures. 
A boy in the first year, who was ready to quit, entered 
an auto repair shop and suddenly the whole high school 
became worth while. To take a boy out of the group 
of retreaters and let him really star in anything, gives 
him a self-respect which will never let him take failure 



MANUAL-TRAINING HIGH SCHOOL 147 

for granted again. I believe high-school shopmen, 
generally, will bear out the statement that a class which 
does not contain one or two or three boys thus notice- 
ably awakened is the exception. 

"But," some conservative friend remarks, "the forg- 
ing and auto work were not cultural studies. They 
were simply the means of making these boys care for 
the studies which do give culture." In what does the 
worth of a study consist? In the effect on the boy. 
And answer fairly, if algebra could be the means of 
that kind of a transformation in the self-respect and 
mental alertness of a boy, wouldn't you count that 
quite a star in its crown of glory ? 

Manual Arts as Training for Adolescents. — 
There's a reason for all this. High-school boys are in 
the midst of the period of adolescence. They need ab- 
sorbing physical occupation. It gives an outlet to their 
restless energy. It allows no time for morbid thinking. 
It is a period of impatience. The boy wants to see the 
end of what he is doing. This gives him some tangible 
result of his work. Robert Louis Stevenson, you re- 
member, used sometimes to indulge in making furni- 
ture. He said that a day spent furniture making was 
in many respects much more satisfying than a day 
spent writing. In the former, he could see just what 
he had accomplished, while in the latter, perhaps he 
had done something of account, perhaps not. It was 
hard to judge. If a man of Stevenson's mental grasp 
was at times oppressed by the intangibleness of mind 
work, how must a boy in the teens feel ? It is too much 
to expect him always to be satisfied with work which 
he can neither see, nor touch, nor show to another. 



148 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

It is not simply that the good he has accomplished 
becomes tangible ; the mistakes glare at him. Nobody 
but himself, and possibly the teacher and part of the 
class, know it if he has bungled learning the conjuga- 
tion of amo; but his father, his friends, anybody, 
could see if the edge were not true on his table. It 
would stay there in permanent form to remind him; 
but it doesn't, for no teacher worth the name will ac- 
cept any work which is not true. To make a thing and 
make it right — is there anything better suited to train 
in moral rectitude ? 

As for mental training, while we make, we think. 
Why in church history are denominations always fall- 
ing below the standards of their founders? Because 
the creed, being made, ceases to be an object of thought 
but becomes mere form. Whoever with idle brain 
made a thing he had never made before? Initiative, 
patience, invention, regard for fixed rules of construc- 
tion; these qualities are simple necessities in good 
workmanship. 

Many urge, however, that the manual work tends to 
materialism, to a love of money. On the other hand, 
it is the greatest safeguard against this vice. It is the 
sloven workman who is thinking of his pay. The work 
of a real craftsman can. not be reckoned in money. 

Incidentally, manual training divides the adolescent 
boys from the girls. It does this by a difference of oc- 
cupation. They meet on common ground in certain 
classes and are separate in industrial occupations ; an 
arrangement as natural as the home. The boy has all 
chance to develop masculinity without being separated 
from the refining influence of girls. They see each 



MANUAL-TRAINING HIGH SCHOOL 149 

other, but the association is not continuous. Many a 
girl, too, has been thankful that the boy has taken his 
manual work. A certain sense of domesticity is culti- 
vated by the making of things ; a man who can make 
has a soul a bit more congenial to a woman whose life 
is concerned in the details of home industry. 

The physical work furnishes the relaxation of 
change, and a boy can carry from one-fifth to one- 
fourth more work than if he takes purely academic 
lines. This economy of time is a thing constantly 
counted on in making out courses of study. 

All this has not taken into account the concrete prep- 
aration which these subjects give for after life to fu- 
ture artisans, engineers, business managers and profes- 
sional men. This will be taken up in detail in another 
chapter, but certainly it is safe to take for granted 
without argument that they have as much concrete use 
in after life as any other studies in the curriculum. 

Relation to College EntrancCo- — In giving a study 
full credit in a high-school course, there is an element 
to be considered, entirely aside from the intrinsic worth 
of the subject. That is its relation to college entrance. 
It is of no use to say in a grandiose manner that boys 
are preparing for life, not for college; that few are 
privileged to go on and that the relation of their course 
to college entrance makes no difference. Many of 
them do go on. Many more are inspired by the possi- 
bility of so doing. The road from kindergarten to the 
university being open to every child lacks little of be- 
ing the very best feature of our American education, 
and I, for one, am not disposed to give it up. We need 
a little philosophy in our souls, however. We need to 



150 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

know that in having to fight its way into college recog- 
nition, manual arts are only repeating the experience 
of every new subject. It is so much easier to demand 
money of a long-recognized stamp than to distinguish 
between the real and counterfeit modern, that our col- 
leges and universities often refuse the genuine modern 
while accepting an ancient stamp which has ceased to 
pass as currency in the world at large. 

Real Difficulty in Judging.~But to look at the col- 
lege side a bit. It really is a nuisance to have a new 
subject come up for admission, uncertified, entirely un- 
standardized, with nobody in the college faculty who 
knows enough about it to judge its merit. Such a sub- 
ject gives rise to the best and worst of teaching ; to the 
best, for the ones introducing it have purpose, initia- 
tive, virility in teaching ; to the worst, because the min- 
ute a subject is popular, untrained upstarts all over the 
country proclaim themselves ready to teach it. More- 
over, it takes a person who really knows the art him- 
self to distinguish the true from the false. One might 
think the equipment would form some basis for judg- 
ment. It doesn't. The teacher is the one item. Booker 
T. Washington once said that he never saw a more pa- 
thetic sight than a rosewood piano in a schoolhouse 
without a musician in the neighborhood. It's no less 
tragic, it's no less comic, to see extensive mechanical 
equipment and not a master mechanic in the faculty. 
But it takes a real mechanic to appreciate the comedy, 
and our university faculties do not as yet abound in 
these. 

Standardized Subjects Easier to Handle. — When, 
however, there is assurance that the teacher knows his 



\ 



MANUAL-TRAINING HIGH SCHOOL 151 

business, it still takes time to standardize a subject 
so that the wayfaring man may know just what the 
pupil has taken. A study when "standardized" has lost 
something of its crisp freshness, but it is very conve- 
nient to handle. Why, ever since the Gallic war, teach- 
ers have been devising ways to teach the Ablative Ab- 
solute with the general result that "All things being 
ready, nothing is now lacking," except the pupils. A 
college man can tell by the bridge which is being built 
exactly how far the class has progressed. He isn't as 
yet trained to tell that when the bridges are made of 
wood instead of words, but that is coming. 

No Halo of Association. — Again, a new subject 
has no halo of association. It is not recorded in the 
biographies of our great men that they studied these 
things in school. Every nation has its ancestor wor- 
ship and that is part of ours. It is a good thing. It 
means that a subject must be real, virile, and meet a 
pressing need to overcome these things and make for 
itself a place. Physics has done it ; chemistry, botany, 
zoology, and modern languages. Skepticism regarding 
these has almost vanished. Manual arts are making 
for themselves a place faster than any one of these 
ever did. 

Taint of Toil. — ^And that, notwithstanding the fact 
that they have an added obstacle to overcome. They 
are connected in our minds with toil, real manual labor 
which soils the hands and calls for overalls. We might 
as well own it. There is a bigotry which mental training 
has always assumed toward manual, and our colleges 
and universities are not free from it. Let me hasten 
to say that in this they but represent the great part of 



152 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

the world of adults. It's only the rarely wise, the chil- 
dren and the boys who accept work in its democracy. 

Geometry Once a "Practical" Subject. — We insist 
on a man dying before we eulogize him, and it's hard 
for us to idealize a subject before it has laid down its 
practical life. I wonder how the Egyptians regarded 
geometry. You see, after the Nile overflowed each 
year, all their farm boundaries were obliterated and 
every man's fields had to be staked off again. Geom- 
etry was then in the making, and was the most prac- 
tical, every-day thing with its roots in the silt of the 
Nile. No mummy has told me so, yet I'm sure some 
of their learned men must have thought it a crude sub- 
ject to be taught to the young nobility. But if boys 
were the same then as now, how they must have rev- 
eled in splashing about taking measurements while the 
fields were still all puddly ! 

Quality of Boys Determines College Entrance. — 
After all, this boy nature decides the whole question 
of college entrance. Our higher institutions most 
glibly refused admission to manual subjects, but they 
are taking down the bars with all speed to admit the 
manual-trained hoys. The quality of the graduates 
from technical high schools is the argument in favor 
of admission which can not be refuted. State univer- 
sities and other higher institutions in the north, central 
and western states are already admitting almost as 
much manual work as boys wish to do. Our eastern 
institutions are rapidly taking steps in the same direc- 
tion, so that we feel that Dean Davenport of the Uni- 
versity of Illinois was fair in his judgment when, in 
speaking of "accepting anything which the schools do 



MANUAL-TRAINING HIGH SCHOOL 153 

and do well," he said : "Our experience is, so far as 
I am able to state it, that we gain in the matter of inter- 
est in life problems and ability to solve them far more 
than we lose in academic finish." 

Place of Manual Arts in Curriculum Established. 
— The place of the manual arts in the high-school cur- 
riculum seems, then, to be well established. Their 
value as educational factors is thoroughly tested, and 
their recognition by higher institutions is following as 
a natural consequence. Association will come. They 
will acquire a halo of their own, or rather we shall 
come to see the one they have long been wearing. We 
have always known that Adam Bede was a man of 
culture, but then he lived in a book, and we are only 
just now coming to recognize him in Yankee disguise. 
This long time we have read with appreciation the 
story of the house built on sand and the one built on a 
rock, and many a fine sermon has been preached on it. 
It's just beginning to occur to us, that possibly one rea- 
son He who spoke it felt the force of the comparison 
was that He was a carpenter and had often had to do 
with the laying of foundations. How very old these 
"new" subjects are ! I wonder that we could ever have 
feared to accredit them. 



CHAPTER III 

THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM AND PROJECT WORK 

IT IS not enough that a school offer a wide and 
varied range of work. It is quite as important 
that it have a method of choice by which a pupil is able 
at all times to take the subject he most needs, together 
with those other studies which best correlate with it. 
That sounds simple enough, doesn't it? But let me 
confide to you a secret. You might never guess it, but 
it is true that fully half the work of the administra- 
tion of a large cosmopolitan high school centers in its 
elective system. Outside the personnel of the teaching 
force, I know of no element of a school more im- 
portant to the boy entering it, than the way in which 
his studies are chosen. The great majority of Amer- 
ican boys coming up to high school have only the 
vaguest notion of what they are going to do in life. 
Those who think they know, more often than not 
change afterward. How can the studies of each one 
be so. chosen as to give an insight into the lines best 
suited to him? Perhaps he knows exactly what he 
desires the first semester. Maybe by the second semes- 
ter his whole life purpose has undergone a change. 
Shall he be allowed completely to shift lines of work? 
Suppose the next term he wishes to try something else ? 
Suppose d. boy insists on what you know he will never 

154 



MANUAL-TRAINING HIGH SCHOOL 155 

use? The writer recalls the case of a colored boy of 
sluggish mind who persisted in wishing to give up all 
manual arts in favor of a study of Latin; "For," he 
argued, "I might want to clerk in a store and somebody 
might come in and ask for something in Latin !" He 
was quite sincere. He did not know but that the for- 
eigners of his city talked Latin. You see the boys are 
not only ignorant of what they are to do, but in many 
cases they are pathetically in the dark as to the content 
of the subject they wish. Perhaps a boy very much 
admires a man of his acquaintance who is a chemist. 
The boy has no scientific gifts at all, and yet he is satis- 
fied with nothing else than the subjects leading to that 
business. Here is a boy who learns well but slowly. 
How can he be given a chance to do the good work he 
likes to do without holding back that other boy who is 
so brilliant he gets through and loafs half his time? 
There is a wealthy boy who is credit hunting, intends 
to get through high school the easiest way so as to go 
to college and have a gay time. Here's a boy — and his 
name is legion — who's certainly good for something, 
but nobody has ever found out what. 

Elective System a Necessity. — In view of all the 
complicating problems — whose number is exactly de- 
termined by the number of boys in school — many 
worthy educators give up and favor a rigid course of 
study, counting an elective system too cumbersome to 
handle. If they wish the course of study enlarged, 
they ofifer some six or eight set courses of study, lim- 
iting the choice to some one of these. But just con- 
sider how sensible that is. On going into a tailor shop 
to have your son fitted with a suit, the tailor tells you, 



156 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

"Sir, your son is so very hard to fit, his figure is so 
far removed from any regular type, that I suggest you 
buy his clothes ready made !" The very thing which 
makes an elective system a problem makes of it a ne- 
cessity. 

Synopsis of One Plan. — May I offer a little synop- 
sis of the plan of choosing subjects in the school with 
which the writer chances to be connected. Not that 
it is better than those of a score of other plans outlined 
in catalogues on the desk before me, but merely that 
the writer is surer that he understands it in every 
detail. 

To begin with, there is just this much required work 
— three and one-half years of English and one year of 
algebra. I am not sure that the algebra can be justi- 
fied, but English is needed by all and no one ever seems 
to doubt it. At first the English is general, then later, 
as pupils begin to find themselves, it is dift'erentiated ; 
some electing to study classics, others taking business 
English, still others the technical English of certain 
vocational courses. 

Limitations to Choice. — Outside of these require- 
ments, ever3rthing in a program of five hundred daily 
classes is subject to the choice of the pupil, but with 
certain limitations. He can not without special per- 
mission take more nor fewer than four regular sub- 
jects. About the only reasons for which fewer are 
ever granted are health and necessary outside employ- 
ment. The privilege of extra work is made the reward 
of high grades — on the principle of the man who gov- 
erned one city well being rewarded with having five 
to govern. 



MANUAL-TRAINING HIGH SCHOOL 157 

Another limitation is that of the year for which a 
subject can be chosen. Subjects are offered in the 
lowest year in which it is thought the boy can rightly 
carry them. He may elect any from lower years than 
his own. 

The most important limitation, however, is that re- 
lating to continuity of work. In the printed course of 
study, after a given number of terms in a subject a 
star is placed. No pupil who selects this subject is per- 
mitted to drop it for another until he reaches the star. 
When he has met this requirement he is at liberty to 
select any other line. For example, the star in mathe- 
matics is placed at the end of two and one-half years, 
in history at the end of two years, and in German and 
Latin at the end of four years, etc. 

All exceptions to this rule of sequence must be made 
by the principal personally. A boy completing his first 
year mathematics may wish to take up a business 
course, and therefore to substitute business arithmetic 
and bookkeeping for higher mathematics. This per- 
mission is readily granted, provided the choice is voca- 
tional and made with the thorough understanding of 
both pupil and parent that the course thereafter is to 
point to the office and not to college. A little card is 
used in this and similar cases, which reads as follows : 

■ asks permission to omit in order to 



take - 

This change may prove a handicap to the pupil 
should he wish to attend college, since the subject to 
be omitted is usually required for college entrance. By 
signing below, the parent signifies that he realizes the 
above condition, but requests that the desired permis- 
sion be granted. -, parent. 



158 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

The whole object Is not in any sense to curtail the 
choice, but to make sure that changes of work are 
made for a purpose. Incidentally the conferences with 
parents held when a boy wishes to change his line of 
study afford opportunities for the very finest kind of 
vocational guidance. Teachers concerned are called 
in, and the purposeful work of many a boy dates from 
one of these conferences. 

At other times, when a boy wishes to change his 
work simply because he is hopelessly unsuited to it, 
he is given permission by sacrificing a credit. To illus- 
trate, he has taken a half-year of language work. It 
is not considered that a half-year of language is worth 
anything when taken alone. If he wishes to change 
enough to sacrifice that credit and begin again in an- 
other line, it is regarded as better both for him and 
for the language class that he should. 

There are classes, too, with greater rate of progress 
than others, taking two terms to do what some classes 
do in one. A boy who very much wishes geometry, 
for instance, but realizes his weakness, may elect to 
take a slow-going class, giving twice the time to the 
same credit that a more brilliant youngster takes. But 
ten to one, this earnest type of plodder is enough 
stronger in some other subject to make up for it. He 
may be a particular star in shop work. 

A boy who has taken a strong manual-arts course 
wakes up at the last to the fact that he is cut out for a 
lawyer and wishes to go to a classical college. His 
whole senior year may be used for doubling on just 
the things he will most need. A considerable propor- 
tion of the graduates "post" a half-year or even longer 



MANUAL-TRAINING HIGH SCHOOL 159 

to complete the thing in which they find themselves 
absorbed toward the last. Isn't this interest which 
outlasts a diploma rather a favorable sign? 

Does the Elective System Discipline? — This gives 
the vaguest outline of the workings of an elective sys- 
tem in one of the schools which attempts to tailor-make 
a suit to fit each boy. Does this plan of allowing a boy 
to do his own deciding as to whether he shall take art 
or science, blacksmithing or music, furnish him the 
right kind of training, or does it smack too much of 
humoring his fancy? Does it supply discipline to im- 
mature impulses ? We know, of course, that the boys 
like it, but is that merely because it allows them to 
do as they please? Does it meet the real needs of ado- 
lescent boys in a firm, character-forming way? May 
we consider a few of these needs in this relation? 

High School a Testing Ground. — The biggest 
thing ahead of the boy who enters high school is the 
choice of his life occupation. He is impatient to be 
doing the work of a man. Whether he knows what he 
is to do or not he wants to be at it. I wish that all of 
us who have to do with boys could understand that the 
picture given us of the one perfect boy — the Boy in 
the temple with His serious questions — was not the 
Supreme Exception, but instead, the Divine Type of all 
the other boys whom His Father had created. 'T must 
be about my Father's business!" is,* may we reverently 
think, the natural cry of the boy-heart. Years and 
years of training were to intervene before He was 
formally to enter that work. Whether we can bring the 
boy whom we meet to submit to the training test, that 
is the question. But firgt we must tielp him catch a 



160 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

glimpse of what he is some time to do. The great 
work of the high school is that of a testing ground 
where he may gain insight into possible fields of work, 
try his hand in them, know what he can do, decide on 
his vocation. If he knows, he will be more willing to 
train for it. Consciously or unconsciously when he 
chooses, the supreme thing in his interest is given the 
central place. Let him with all intensity concentrate, 
take the things related the most closely. He will know 
then what that field has for him. Let him forget every- 
thing else. Other things can wait. Suppose he is a 
misfit; better find it out now than try the same thing 
later and fail, when failure means loss of position, of 
prestige, of years of time. 

Second Age of Beginning. — He changes. How else 
can he gain an insight into many phases of life; 
how if he try but one? Mr. Claxton, United 
States Commissioner of Education, has aptly called 
the adolescent age "the second age of beginnings," 
and points out that the after-life of boys is almost 
always limited to those things begun in adoles- 
ence. His advice is to have them enter upon many 
lines of study: music, art, manual work and religion, 
that they may lay foundation for full after-lives. A 
boy may begin a thing, leave it alone a long while, and 
then return to it, but Mr. Claxton argues that he sel- 
dom begins an entirely new line after adolescence. All 
the time he is gaining insight into life. Giving no 
credit at all for disconnected study insures against a 
crop of smatterers. But suppose the boy's whole course 
is a series of intense, rather short-lived, experiments in 
life ? What of that if he come out of it with a sound 



MANUAL-TRAINING HIGH SCHOOL 161 

mind, anxious to do his part and fairly well decided as 
to what it is? 

Concentration the Natural Method.— The very, 
fact that an elective system admits of this extreme con- 
centration and subsequent change — of utter neglect of 
"well-balanced" course of study — is a big point in its 
favor. It may sound well to say the boy should carry 
one line of history, one of language, one of mathe- 
matics and the like and give himself an all-round devel- 
opment. Does he play that way? Does he practise 
baseball one day, tennis the next, track the next, and 
so on in orderly rotation? No; he plays baseball 
morning, noon and night, until his home may be told 
by the clutter of balls, bats and masks. Suddenly and 
unaccountably he quits, turns to tennis and is up at five 
o'clock playing before breakfast. Whatever he plays 
is at the time a distinct specialty. He works in exactly 
the same manner. If a boy is interested in electricity, 
there's no limit to the time he puts in on it. He makes 
private telegraph, vv^ireless contrivances and the like 
until the whole place is littered with apparatus. If he 
wants to take a half-day in physics and study the lives 
of inventors in English, let him do it. If it isn't his 
line, he will find it out quicker that way than any other. 
If it is, he will have a start worth while. 

Do you think such concentration will exhaust the 
interest ? On the other hand, it's the leisurely-pursued 
subject which becomes wearisome. It is not effort 
which tires, but failure to see results. A boy who 
plays tennis hard will keep up interest much longer 
than one who occasionally tries it. Over and over 
again boys disinterested in shop one hour a day three 



162 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

times a week, become absorbed if given a half-day 
five times a week. 

It can not be denied that while a boy is concentrating 
on one line of work he is woefully neglecting all others. 
He may come to them presently. He may leave them 
out entirely. The whole plan proceeds on the theory 
that a boy may be really cultured, ready to do his part 
in the world, and be densely ignorant of very many 
things, things which are useful and good to know. 
Hawthorne and Lowell detested mathematics; Gold- 
smith could not master mathematics nor logic; young 
Walter Scott positively refused to learn Greek ; Edison 
could hardly be said to have been cultivating himself 
all around when he was working at his chemical labora- 
tory and printing press in a box-car ; and perhaps most 
extreme of all, Jean Francois Millet records : "I never 
could get beyond addition in mathematics, and I do not 
understand subtraction and the rules following." We 
are fond of regarding such men as exceptions. But 
are they? Which of us has not some natural aversion ? 

But mind you, the inability to do a thing ourselves 
does not prevent us from forming real friendship 
with those who do. We can not just here enter into 
the effects of the attachments of boy specialists to 
other boys doing what they can not do. Enough to 
suggest that one such attachment does more to give 
a boy an insight into the real life of workers in an- 
other field than would any superficial drill in the tech- 
nique of the subject. As long as the young chaps are 
thrown together daily, the narrowing process of spe- 
cialization is not so alarming. 



MANUAL-TRAINING HIGH SCHOOL 163 

Moral Effect. — Allusion has already been made to 
the moral effect of concentration. There is also a 
distinct effect on the moral nature produced by merely 
being allowed to do something one wishes to do. It 
is a dangerous thing to make a boy feel he is an out- 
law whenever he follows his own choice. To be asked 
to do the thing one desires not only takes the very core 
out of the habit of grumbling about work; it makes 
a boy feel that he and the school are on the same side. 
The writer believes principals will universally concur 
in the statement that the elective system eliminates 
over half the cases of high-school discipline. 

Incidentally, no studies profit by this plan of selec- 
tion more than the ones not chosen. Fancy, you who 
teach language, how blissful it would seem to have only 
those take it who like it. The friend of a subject 
ought to be the last man to wish everybody to take it. 
So much higher grade of work is possible when free 
choice has sifted the numbers. 

"Snap Hunters."— But the elective system does not 
bring about the millennium in secondary education. 
There are "snap hunters." As long as water flows 
down-hill, there'll probably be boys as well as grown- 
ups seeking the easiest way. You remember in Little 
Men the boys were given their choice as to crops to 
cultivate in the garden. Tommy, as he frankly ex- 
plains, "cattleated to hev beans as they are about the 
easiest crop agoin'." But, do you think he would have 
worked any harder if Mr. Bhaer had told him what to 
raise? He had had melons one year — a hard crop to 
care for. It had merely resulted in no crop at all. It's 



164 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

certainly as bad to fail in a hard subject as to pass in 
an easy one. Besides, the credit hunters are far out- 
numbered by the impulsive, enthusiastic boys who, if 
allowed, would undertake more than they can do. 
Interest far outweighs ease with a healthy boy. Does 
he choose the easy thing in athletics? A boy will in- 
variably assign himself a harder task than he will 
cheerfully perform if some one else assigns it. Even 
here we believe the elective system is justified. 

Project Work.— We have been thinking of the 
elective system as applied to the selection of studies. 
Project work is the same idea carried a step further. 
The boy is allowed to choose what he shall make. He 
then becomes responsible for every part of the con- 
struction from pencil design and blue print on to the 
waxed finish. The idea of having boys make joints 
and joints, "just for training," is quite outgrown. 
The thing that gives discipline is intensity of applica- 
tion for a purpose. What boy is going to try as 
hard to make a practise piece of woodwork, doomed 
to the junk heap, as he will to make a table, a shoe 
rack or other simple piece of usable furniture which 
he himself has chosen? The advantages of project 
work need only to be enumerated to be recognized. It 
is by this means that the home becomes directly a part 
of the school ; the father and mother will place no price 
on the articles their son has made; the boy is given 
a point of pride both in his school and his home ; the 
work is intensely practical ; initiative and originality 
are necessities ; perseverance is equally so, for no in- 
complete work passes; every phase of workmanship 



MANUAL-TRAINING HIGH SCHOOL 165 

enters ; time and effort become secondary to real con- 
crete achievement. 

The Elective System Without School.— Tony 
Weller, when Mr. Pickwick praised his son Samuel, 
appropriated the credit quite simply: "I took a great 
deal o' pains in his eddication, sir; let him run the 
streets when he was werry young, sir, and shift for 
hisself. It's the only way to make a boy sharp, sir." 
That remark is not all comedy. Sam Weller had the 
elective system and project work without any school at- 
tached. Even without the school, these two things do 
not always fail, as witness in our cities a number of 
cases of successful business men grown from news- 
boys and errand boys. It is not merely the Sam 
Wellers who suffer under restraint. One biographer 
of Washington Irving, in referring to the fact that 
he availed himself of less schooling than did his broth- 
ers, remarks : "Perhaps it is just as well, for his genius 
was left freer to develop itself !" Doctor Corson 
writes of Robert Browning : "His scholarship was ex- 
tensive and, I would add, vital, it not having been im- 
posed upon him at a public school and university, etc." 
Imposed upon him ! 

Elective System vs. Uniformity.— Do you think 
the introduction of an elective system and project work 
a bold thing? It is not half so audacious as making a 
fixed course of study and expecting all to follow it. 
When I consider the grades of character from Sam 
Weller to Robert Browning, I marvel at, I really envy, 
the self-confidence of any man who thinks he knows 
what all of these boys ought to study during the most 



166 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

changeable period of their lives. "But," the professor 
who is such a marvel to me, innocently asks, "how else 
can we secure uniformity in the work which our boys 
take?" There is no other way. Thanks be, with an 
elective system there is no hope of being uniform. In 
her clever little story Daddy Long Legs Jean Webster 
clearly illustrates the meaning of this term. She 
sketches the picture of a little girl, hair stretched tight 
back into two outward extending pig tails, plain 
checked gingham apron — too big for her — face with 
scared expression. She labels her picture "Just Any 
Orphan." That is "uniformity." 

When the boy "shifts for hisself " a little more in the 
public school, he may not be obliged to walk the street 
to become "sharp, sir." When he may take his choice 
of study with as much concentration as he wishes, it 
may perhaps no longer be said of his brother out of 
school, "his genius had a better chance to develop 
itself." When we utterly cast aside the arrogance 
of fixed prescription, it will hardly be correct to speak 
of education as "imposed upon him by the public 
school." The time is coming — we even claim that it is 
fully here — when an artist will be at a loss how to 
draw a composite picture of "just any" high-school 
boy! 



CHAPTER IV 

VOCATIONAL POSSIBILITIES OF A HIGH SCHOOL 

IT IS hard for us, as children, to comprehend that 
the location of a rainbow entirely depends on the 
eye of the seer. What to me is only a bit of cloud, 
may be a rainbow to my neighbor. This is not easy 
for us to realize even when we are grown up. We are 
always forgetting it. We are constantly trying to place 
our labels : this is cloud, that is rainbow ; this bit of 
work is drudgery, that is inspiration. It is all a mat- 
ter of vision or lack of it. To "The Man with a 
Hoe," tilling the soil is a dull thing to do. It is work- 
ing with clods, clods, clods, until the mind grows 
cloddish. To Hawthorne planting his garden at The 
Old Manse, the raising of cabbage and squash is fit 
subject for a choice bit of prose-poetry. The soil of 
New England, which Whittier plowed, is far rockier 
than that of Normandy, whose peasants Millet painted. 
Both Whittier and Millet did the work of peasantry, 
but were not peasants. They were both lords in the 
literal meaning of the word — "maintainer of laws" — 
the one by his pen, the other by his verse helping to 
establish the laws of the universe in the hearts of men. 
"Vocational" a Relative Term. — Now if we can 
not distinguish between drudgery and Inspiration ex- 
cept we know the point of vision, no more can we 

167 



168 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

tell the vocational and practical from the purely cul- 
tural. Yonder is a mountain. To many an observer 
it is a dream world, a place where our old earth dares 
to touch the sky. To the shepherd whose flocks may be 
glimpsed on its side, it is the simple means of a liveli- 
hood. Vocational, non-vocational; the thing which a 
certain boy is going to do to make a living is to him 
vocational, and the things which the other boys are 
going to do are to him non-vocational or purely cul- 
tural. Greek is a vocational study to the future Greek 
professor, and forging a real piece of culture, ac- 
quainting him with a contrasting phase of life. This 
is just as true as is its converse, that to the future 
blacksmith forging is vocational and Greek purely cul- 
tural. The thing I am trying to say is simply this : 
any subject taken with the purpose of making it a 
life-work is vocational. Any subject taken without 
this purpose is non-vocational. The Introduction of 
vocational work in high schools merely means the in- 
fusion of serious life-work purpose into the courses. 
Happy is that high school whose every line of work 
is dignified by the presence of some earnest boy who 
reverences it enough to place it in the center of his 
life plans. 

The purpose of this chapter is to show just how far, 
and in what ways, our enlarged high schools are serv- 
ing and are learning to serve, the boy who thinks he 
knows what he wishes to do in life. We have said 
that the great majority of boys on coming to high 
school have not decided on the thing which they are 
eventually to undertake. A few of them have, how- 
ever. Many more think they have, and of course 



MANUAL-TRAINING HIGH SCHOOL 169 

there is no way of telling the difference between these 
two classes, so that together they make a considerable 
number. 

How May High Schools Teach Vocations? — With 
an elective system the question of life-work naturally 
comes up at the choice of studies for each term, so 
that every term sees a number of boys becoming more 
definite in their intentions. Just as fast as a boy's 
purpose is matured, it needs to find expression in 
definite training. 

It is commonly supposed that all our civilized ac- 
tivities may be roughly classified into six lines — pro- 
fessional, commercial, agricultural, industrial, nautical 
and home-making. As the last named is more espe- 
cially for girls, and the nautical is obviously limited 
to sea-faring folk — except the merest theory — our dis- 
cussion will have to do with the first four of these 
great continents of activity. 

Boys Who Are to Enter Professions. — What does 
a manual-arts high school do for a boy who is headed 
toward one of the professions? First, to take the 
word "profession" in the old narrow sense of theology, 
medicine or law. The first impulse is to say that this 
type of school does exactly the same as any other 
high school, — serves as college preparatory ; these pro- 
fessions being entered by way of college or university. 
It does perform this function even more completely 
than did its predecessor, the academic high school, for 
it Is a larger school and with its elective system has a 
much more highly differentiated course of study in even 
strictly academic lines. A boy may therefore choose 
with greater exactness what he needs to take. But it 



170 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

does much more than this. It offers training for these 
professions as they are to-day — wedded to the indus- 
tries. In theology, perhaps, the manual arts are not nec- 
essary, merely advisable, — a training for leisure hours, 
a road of sympathetic insight into lives of materially 
constructive men. But in medicine — what does the 
physician do? He acts as the sanitary agent of a city 
and needs to know about drainage, sewer construction, 
modes of ventilation, proper methods of building and 
the like; or he is a surgeon, and can not have his 
hand too carefully trained to the expert use and care 
of tools. We look over an alumni list of boys who 
when in high school were planning on law. Here is 
one who has become a corporation counsel for a rail- 
road company. Perhaps his civil engineering is not 
necessary, but I doubt if you could buy it of him. 
Here is another who is a patent-office attorney. He 
was so mechanical he could scarcely decide on law and 
enthusiastically entered a patent office in Washington, 
D. C. His knowledge of mechanics is now as much a 
part of his equipment as is his knowledge of law. 

But the "professions" have come to include scores 
of occupations. Teaching — there are a number of 
boys in every high school headed direct for this occu- 
pation. Just at the present time, demand for trained 
manual-arts teachers so far exceeds the supply, that 
the boys are tempted to enter the profession direct 
from high school, thus deferring more complete trade 
or college training. Do you know how rare these 
teachers are? England reached out clear to one of our 
central states for one of the teachers to train h^r sol- 
diers in the expert vise of g-ytomobiles, 



MANUAL-TRAINING HIGH SCHOOL 171 

What the Professions Include.— We can only touch 
the varied vocations. The boys who are to be artists 
are apt to decide early, as their inclination is usually 
pronounced. Our high schools boast a full share in 
the training of rising young artists. The writer of his 
own knov/ledge of high-school boys, can count some 
three or four whose work in serious art is coming to 
attain a rank which we dare to think means lasting 
pride to our state ; some few gifted cartoonists ; several 
architects, one winning a prize not long ago. Some of 
these are cases of "genius developing itself," but the 
vocational work of art is not limited to star-perform- 
ers. Advertising is a field for which the high school 
prepares direct; as are also furniture design, interior 
decoration and drafting. It is hard to tell when the 
profession of arts drifts into the trade. Qualitative 
analysis of occupations is as complex as is that of 
minerals. 

The profession of music is not as yet exclusively de- 
veloped, but that is coming. A few of our large high 
schools have departments which begin to aspire to the 
vocational, and there is hardly one of the larger 
schools not growing on that side. We can not omit the 
field of invention, or does it belong among the pro- 
fessions? To see Edison in his laboratory dressed in 
working clothes, his hands acid stained, one might 
class him among the toiling mechanics. But perhaps 
the professions might like to claim him. Wherever the 
American inventor belongs, as a man, he surely, as a 
boy, is on his native heath in a manual-arts high school. 

Then there are the engineering professions. No one 
ever questions that the manual high schools give as 



172 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

direct training for these as is possible. Certainly, to 
be expert, the boy needs to continue in an engineering 
college, but the high-school work lays as direct a 
foundation for this as do four years of Latin for 
a fifth. It is a joy to reckon the number of construct- 
ive men who are doing useful work as civil engineers, 
building bridges, railroads, helping on great canals ; as 
mining engineers, as electrical engineers, as mechanical 
engineers. These aggressive useful vocations appeal 
intensely to boys, and offer full scope to their love of 
adventure. 

In general, it may be said that for the most of the 
learned professions a boy can take as direct training 
as he wishes, correlated with enough of the contrast- 
ing activity of the world to prepare him for spending 
his leisure hours and for becoming a fairly compan- 
ionable friend to men in other lines. 

Closely allied to the professions are the commercial 
vocations. Indeed, many of the boys who intend en- 
tering the professions take courses in stenography, 
typewriting, business English, accounting, business law 
and office practise, in order at first to help earn their 
way through college, and later to be able better to 
manage their own private business. Perhaps it is not 
often that a boy consciously plans to become a private 
secretary, but a boy who couples a good business 
course with his academic education is ready for such a 
place, or for a position of court reporter or private 
office man. It is with no difficulty at all that the busi- 
ness departments of our high schools work in con- 
junction with the ofBce departments of reliable busi- 
ness firms of our cities. These offices are only too 



MANUAL-TRAINING HIGH SCHOOL 173 

glad to teach real office practise in return for large 
amounts of routine work done by pupils under direc- 
tion of the teachers. Boys who wish to become book- 
keepers, or office men or expert accountants, or bankers, 
can work out courses of ideal training. Sometimes 
they give half-time to practise work, half to school. 

In this commercial world there is a whole line of 
occupations which require business training to be 
united with some one other line. There are printing 
establishments whose accountants need knowledge of 
printing as well as of accounts. Not two weeks ago 
the writer was asked by the head man of a pulley 
manufacturing plant to name a boy for accountant — 
one who could keep books and who at the sam.e time 
was familiar enough with the processes of making the 
articles involved to be a judge of just how long it was 
taking to make each piece and how the process could 
be shortened. The man was willing to hold the po- 
sition open until some boy, already apt, could com- 
plete a specialized course for just that thing. The po- 
sition promises to become one of the most responsible 
and most remunerative in the plant. Every manufac- 
turing firm requires such a cost accountant, also stock- 
room accountants, who know the materials with which 
they are dealing. How can boys who take their busi- 
ness courses apart from industrial training prepare for 
these positions? 

Traveling salesmen must be business trained, of 
course, but they must also knowr the material which 
they are selling. It was one boy's course in mechanics 
which recently gave him a position selling milling ma- 
chinery and he is more than fulfilling expectations. 



174 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

To the boy, then, who wishes to enter commercial 
work, the commercial departments not only offer every- 
thing usually to be found in such courses, but he may 
elect also work which will teach him something of the 
materials which he is to sell, or of which he is to keep 
account. On the other hand, if his business leans to- 
ward the professions, he may supplement stenography 
with history, English, or whatever academic line is 
most needed. 

Agricultural Occupations. — You observe that the 
attempt even roughly to classify vocations is a failure. 
Those classed as commercial are fully as much in- 
dustrial. We deserve no credit at all in this country 
for not having a caste system. Fancy our trying to 
rate a man's social standing according to his occupa- 
tion ! But surely the agricultural division is more 
clearly defined. The men who till the soil do not have 
the freedom of the old darky of whom Thomas Nelson 
Page writes: "We ain't got no root to we foots." 
They are located. The study of specific soils, crops 
and ways to make the most of each form the basis of 
training of boys. This is one line for which rural high 
schools have in the main a better opportunity than 
large city high schools. In the writer's home cit}^ how- 
ever, there is an all-day vocational school in connection 
with one of the high schools. Fifty city boys were 
found who intended doing scientific farming. Not all 
of these, however, were ready 3^et to specialize, but 
those who were ready took over the care of a bit of 
farm land and keep going a strictly vocational all-day 
department of a high school. These boys study gar- 
dening, fruit raising, soils, chemistry, poultry raising, 



MANUAL-TRAINING HIGH SCHOOU 175 

insect pests, fruit preservation and the like, besides 
English and such other studies as they wish to elect. 
Had you thought how much better skilled our farmers 
are in production than in marketing? And that does 
not minimize the waste of resources in under-produc- 
tion, either. This means these boys need much com- 
mercial work and practical civics. They are required 
to take business accounting along with their market 
gardening. And has it occurred to you what it means 
vocationally to a young farmer to know how cor- 
rectly to construct simple buildings ? They even say a 
farmer's wife sometimes sighs in vain for neatly built 
chicken coops and hen houses. And the forging, — de- 
spite the age of autos, these farmers are apt to have 
horses needing to be shod, as well as plowshares to 
be sharpened. Nor is it longer possible for a man to 
be fitted to run a big farm without a knowledge of 
mechanics. Certainly no one boy can be adept in all 
the things a farm calls for, but the all-day agricul- 
tural department is one of the most satisfying lines 
which a boy in a farming state can enter. 

The Industries. — We have purposely reserved to 
the last that division of vocations from which the 
manual-arts high schools receive their name — the in- 
dustries. The tradesmen, however, say with truth 
that manual training was not introduced to prepare 
boys for trades. The industries were altogether over- 
looked in our educational system until about twenty- 
five years ago, when manual training was first intro- 
duced into our high schools. It was even then given 
a place, not as something useful, but as something 
"disciplinary" intended to train the hand. It was far 



176 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

from the thought of those who advanced it to train 
workmen. After a quarter of a century, however, we 
have recovered from the first shock of seeing our Lit- 
tle Lord Fauntleroy high-school boys all grimy from 
forge shops, or greasy from care of an engine. We 
have found they can clean up, and enter a drawing- 
room just as well. It may take a special brand of me- 
chanics' soap, but the grease is not like the blood on 
Lady Macbeth's hands — it can be washed off. We 
have even become reconciled to training mechanics who 
are to be mechanics, electricians who intend working 
with electricity, carpenters who long to build, and the 
like. In short, we are no longer ashamed of material 
usefulness. 

All-Day Vocational Departments. — There are just 
three things necessary in order to establish in any high 
school a department which shall give just as reliable 
training to boys who wish to enter specific trades as 
does any trades school. One is a teacher whom work- 
men in his own line respect. The second is the coop- 
eration of local tradesmen and employers so that the 
boys may be given opportunity to work, and later be 
given places among the workmen at just the stage of 
apprenticeship to which they have attained in their 
trade training. The third is boys who wish to do these 
things. You might think that the last should be the 
first essential but the others must frequently precede 
it, in order to give the boys a vision of possibilities. In 
general, both tradesmen and employers have a kindly 
feeling for boys, and for public schools. Their coop- 
eration, therefore, is not hard to procure, provided the 
teacher is skilled both in technique and tact. The 



MANUAL-TRAINING HIGH SCHOOL 177 

writer can testify to one high school having five all- 
day vocational departments besides the agricultural 
department already mentioned — a school in machine- 
shop practise ; one in electrical construction ; one in 
auto construction and repairs ; one in building trades 
and one in printing. These boys supplement their spe- 
cific training with English, civics and mechanical draw- 
ing. Every line is entered with purpose of life train- 
ing. The length of hours precludes any light intention. 
The machine-shop practise boys, for instance, work 
in double shifts of seven hours each. This, with their 
studies, makes a full program. There are several boys 
on the waiting list to enter the classes. The other 
courses are equally strenuous, and strangely enough, 
popular also. 

Do we need to repeat again what is already trite — 
that these boys are vastly better off here than in shops 
which exist to turn out products, not to train pro- 
ducers? Do we need to argue for the wider vision 
they obtain ? In the Ford plant in Detroit a man is set 
doing one little specific job which he can learn to do 
in a short time. But every eighteenth man is sup- 
posed to understand the whole, and to act in a some- 
what supervisory capacity. These men are of course 
much better paid than the comparatively uneducated 
workmen, yet they are much harder to procure. 

Lines Leading from Vocational Schools. — There 
are two lines open to the boys in these vocational 
courses, which courses are for two years' work only. 
One is to complete the high-school course in stud- 
ies closely related and train further in technical col- 
leges. The other is to go into the work at once, fitted. 



178 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

after a shorter apprenticeship, to take advanced posi- 
tions. 

Managing Professions. — Right here it is worth 
while to speak of "the managing professions," which 
are not professions at all, but important industrial po- 
sitions. One of these managers bears the same rela- 
tion to his little world that the housewife does to the 
house. He may, or may not, assist in the manual work 
himself, but he must understand it in every detail; 
he must be able to counsel, plan, advise. He may not 
keep his own books, but he must know when it is 
rightly done. Many of our boys who know their life- 
work early are to enter such places. It is often a case 
of a son becoming the partner of his father. Many 
of the sons of men whose business is well established 
have taken it for granted since childhood that they 
would enter the same field. The father expects the 
boy to bring to the work a fresh grasp of the most 
recent development in the particular line, a good work- 
ing knowledge of office practise, together with enough 
of book-learning to take a place among the gentlemen 
of culture in the community. Many of our most pur- 
poseful boys in the shops are sons of manufacturers ; 
sons of owners of printing establishments ; sons of men 
who own auto establishments; sons of dealers in elec- 
trical apparatus, of contractors, of men who own big 
farms. Nor is it to be counted against the sincerity 
with which a boy learns a trade that he becomes later 
a manager in it. Some time ago a pupil direct from 
a technical high school accepted a place in an interior 
hardwood company. His knowledge of mechanical 
drawing and of the finishing of various kinds of woods 



MANUAL-TRAINING HIGH SCHOOL 179 

soon made him an important member of the firm. He 
is now carrying on a business for himself in this line 
in Chicago. This story is repeated so often the trades- 
men have frequently accused the schools of training not 
for the manual work but for the "managing profes- 
sions." Whatever of fault in the schools may have been 
back of this accusation is being rapidly overcome by 
the serious vocational work now being developed. 

Perhaps a bit of the fault lies in the industries in 
that they have so few trained men that those who come 
prepared are conspicuous. It used to be in the teach- 
ing professions that college men were so rare they were 
placed in supervisory positions. Now, every teacher 
is expected to have a sheepskin lying somewhere in 
moth-eaten glory. 

Education for Routine Work. — But what will be- 
come of the necessary, but monotonous, piece of trade 
work, when all the boys are educated ? To the writer 
that danger seems a trifle remote, but the answer is 
simple. If a man's work does not make him think, 
then he needs to be educated all the more to think for 
himself above the grind of machinery. Have you 
read the very interesting bit of character study which 
Booth Tarkington sets forth in The Turmoil? If you 
have, you remember the difference in the mind of 
Bibbs Sheridan when feeding a clipping machine be- 
fore and after Love and Motive entered his life in the 
form of Mary Vertrees. Motive, thought, vision — ■ 
the school plays the part of the giver of these to the 
boy who is to do routine work. Paul, the tent maker, 
could write his epistles because tent making was too 
monotonous to require his mind. 



180 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

For all the medley of modern vocations, is it clear 
that the high school plays a part in concrete training ? 
And why rather in high school than in separated 
schools ? For just four reasons — to secure economy to 
the state ; to give contrasting study for cultural effect ; 
to allow a boy to change vocations when he sees he 
is a misfit, such change to be without loss of time and 
credits ; to provide for that multitude whose occupa- 
tions reach into too many lines to admit of classifica- 
tion. If we can succeed in overlapping enough, per- 
haps the thing Emerson meant will happen — "Beauty 
must come back to the useful arts and the distinction 
between the fine and useful arts be forgotten." We 
have been working for use or beauty ; perhaps we may 
come to copy the workmanship of One who creates 
every least thing for use and beauty. 



CHAPTER V 

BY-PRODUCTS 

" CT* ■f^A-'^L I tell him to mind his work, and say he's 
j[^ sent to school to make himself a good scholar ? 
Well, but he isn't sent to school for that — at any rate, 
not for that mainly. I don't care a straw for Greek 
particles, or the digamma, no more does his mother. 
What is he sent to school for ? Well, partly because he 
wanted so to go. If he'll only turn out a brave, help- 
ful, truth-telling Englishman, and a gentleman, and a 
Christian, that's all I want." 

I suppose that if the feeling of almost any parent 
of a high-school boy were analyzed, it would pretty 
much agree with the above words of Tom Brown's 
father. A brave, helpful, truth-telling patriot; a gen- 
tleman, a Christian — almost any of us would be satis- 
fied with that, wouldn't we? As for the mothers of 
our country, I judge a very large part of them would 
be happy if they could know their boys would be the 
last named — Christians, in a full sense. They would 
risk that including all the rest. 

American Tendency toi Take Deepest Things for 
Granted. — It is sometimes said of us Americans that 
we are an exceedingly serious, even sad people, who 
are all the time making jokes to hide or to lighten our 
real feelings. Certain it is that if Mark Twain is the 

181 



182 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS • 

typical American his friends think him to be, our hu- 
mor is pretty close akin to earnest purpose. But, we 
would rather Earnestness wore a mask of Fun even 
though it doesn't at all deceive us as to who he is. We 
reverence Lincoln the more because he could tell a 
funny story while his heart was breaking. He seems 
braver to us. He was braver, wasn't he? We feel 
that the deep serious things of life should be above 
question. David Harum's approval of John Lennox 
as an applicant for bank cashier is a case in point — 
"He don't even say he'll do his best, like most fellers 
would. He seems to have took it for granted that I'll 
take it for granted, and that's what I like about it." 
This element of reticence regarding most vital things 
crops out very noticeably in our educational system. 
Every one of us, down deep in the heart, cares more 
for the morals of the boy than for any other phase of 
his training, yet a stranger might examine most of our 
courses of study from start to finish and never find it 
out. So far as the formal teaching of religion is con- 
cerned, of course, there is the fear lest the state try to 
interfere with freedom of conscience. We have not 
forgotten the experience of our forefathers. But this 
does not account for the usual complete absence in 
the curriculum of any phase of the teaching of ethics. 
It is even hard for a book avowedly on citizenship to 
be accepted seriously. It's something either of a joke 
or of an insult to a native American to be told he 
should be loyal. Of course he will be loyal, why not? 
Our catalogues become expansive in their expositions 
of what is offered in literature, in art or in manual 
training, but they leave the reader to take quietly for 



MANUAL-TRAINING HIGH SCHOOL 183 

granted, training in fair play, honesty, courage, truth- 
fulness, patriotism, unselfishness, reverence. We ex- 
pect these to be the by-products of our factory. 

Training in Morals Different from Training in 
Theory of Morals. — Now it would have been a cause 
of chagrin to shrewd David Harum if John Lennox 
had been lacking in those deeper traits of character 
which he left to be taken for granted. It would mean 
more than chagrin to the parents of our high-school 
boys, if our manual-arts schools were deficient in 
training in just those elements. Let no one, however, 
confuse a training in morals with a training in the 
theory of morals. This is often done by good people, 
but it is a grievous mistake. How frequently we hear 
parents excuse themselves from blame for a delin- 
quent child by saying, "We have always told him what 
he should do!" As if being informed as to the right 
course were enough to form the character of any 
child! A boy can recite glibly on the evil effects of 
cigarettes, the while some half dozen are reposing in 
his vest pocket ready for use as soon as the recitation 
is over. Portia was an exception in some things but 
certainly not in her feeling, "I had rather teach twenty 
what were good to be done than to be one of the 
twenty to follow mine own teaching." It's boys 
who will each be "one of the twenty" that we are 
wanting. The race of Polonius is quite big enough — 
giver of beautiful advice, sneaking eavesdropper that 
he was ! The idea that actual character formation is 
a thing apart, a course which can be separately taught 
and catalogued, is something on a par with the idea 
held by the carpenters in the old story. They were 



184 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

building a homely structure and on being asked who 
the architect was, you remember they replied, "O it 
ain't got any architect yet. A man from Boston's 
comin' out an' put the architecture into it." 

Character Training Like Strengthening the Heart. 
— It's a much harder thing to plan a whole building on 
beautiful lines than to add a little cupola. It's com- 
paratively easy to train the hand or the foot, but to 
regulate the heart means the control of every organ of 
the body. Really, the analogy between a physical di- 
rector trying to strengthen the heart and a teacher 
trying to form character is very close. The director 
has to give exercises and games, watching constantly 
the reaction on the heart. When he finds a thing 
which reacts properly, and seems to give strong pulsa- 
tions without strain, he tries to keep that up until habit 
is formed. The heart strengthens very, very slowly. 
Right habits, long-continued, are necessary. It is folly 
to expect results when a boy merely knows what to do. 
Over and over again doing the thing in question until 
his very being takes it up and it becomes reflex — that 
constitutes training. 

Action to Keep Pace with Thought and Feeling. 
— Every school worth the name has caught a vision 
of some truth. The thing the manual-arts schools know 
is that action ought to keep pace with thought and 
feeling. Perhaps there has never been a greater sen- 
tence description of a normal character than that em- 
ployed to describe a woman of old — "Dorcas was full 
of good works which she did." The garments which 
they mournfully handled after her death were her 
plans put into execution. It is said that immediately 



MANUAL-TRAINING HIGH SCHOOL 185 

prior to the French Revolution, women of the no- 
bihty could attend a play in which beggars featured, 
weep from pity of their ills, then go out to the street 
past beggars of similar type, without offering to help. 
They had been removed from doing so long, in artifi- 
cial luxury, that action did not follow their thought 
and feeling. This alone would have made a revolu- 
tion inevitable. The world does not need the full 
number of years of such folk^ while the Dorcases are 
worth bringing back for a second lifetime. 

An eminent divine has said, "The thoughts of God 
are acts," by which I suppose he means that, in the 
perfect being, all good impulses are put into execution. 
Darkly against such a conception looms the character 
of Hamlet. According to every teaching he has had, 
he knows he should avenge his father's death. He 
believes the king is the guilty man ; he proves it ; still 
he does not act. He only reasons, intends. When we 
see that he knows perfectly but does not do, we need 
no more to tell us there has to be a tragedy. There 
could be few more severe arraignments of our sys- 
tems of education than to say Hamlet is a typical 
scholar, taught to reason, to doubt, to know, but not 
to act. 

Greatest Claim of Manual-Arts Schools.— Per- 
haps the greatest distinctive claim our manual-arts 
schools can make toward right training is that by the 
practise of four years they teach a boy to put into con- 
crete execution a considerable number of the things 
which he has conceived and planned. The effects of 
this kind of training are surprisingly apparent. The 
boys expect to do something when they see the need. 



186 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

The principal of such a school can turn over to his 
older boys a large proportion of his own problems and 
they will be solved satisfactorily. Is there a need of 
office furniture ? Do the school premises need decora- 
tion ? Is there a carelessness of deportment at the ath- 
letic games? Is there a need of better music? Are 
the yells a bit questionable in wording? Is the office 
clerk overrun with work? Are there pupils who are 
failing in their studies ? Is there a room lax in deport- 
ment? I wish I could give you a conception of the 
varied number of real problems which the boys of our 
large high schools solve. The following examples 
serve to illustrate. 

Examples of Problems Solved by Boys.— -Silver- 
ware was disappearing from a lunch room, not from 
ordinary theft but as a result of a souvenir craze. The 
boys instituted such an agitation against it as not only 
broke the custom but caused the return of the pieces 
already taken. Some freshmen boys were failing in 
their studies. The fact was reported to an organiza- 
tion of senior boys. They immediately inaugurated 
a system of private tutoring free of charge with re- 
markable results to both sides. A school building was 
disfigured by overzealous class men secretly painting 
the class numbers. The boys of their own class with- 
out any compulsion searched them out, severely cen- 
sured them as class members, caused them to pay for 
righting the building and by force of public opinion in 
the school, prevented a repetition of such an act by 
any class. A grand-stand was needed on school 
grounds, the boys made it; programs were required, 
the boys printed them ; a school clock and electric bell 



MANUAL-TRAINING HIGH SCHOOL 187 

system was out of order, the boys righted it ; a moving- 
picture apparatus was given to a school, the boys in- 
stalled it; new lathes were needed, the boys made 
them; a school building was growing dilapidated, the 
boys repaired it; a school orchard was dying out, the 
boys studied the diseases of the trees, pruned and 
sprayed them ; afterward they gathered the crop, mar- 
keted it, the money being part of the assets of the 
school. It is not that the cooperation of boys with a 
school is any new thing. But it is a new development 
for public high schools to offer lines of activity so 
varied that every boy can see a tangible way to put 
into execution a constructive plan of his own. More- 
over when a boy is under training in doing useful 
things for from two to four hours a day every school 
day for four years, seeing something useful to do and 
doing it become not episodes in his life but habit. 
Occasionally to do something constructive is one thing, 
habitually to do it is quite another thing. It is the 
latter only which can be depended on to develop char- 
acter. 

Classics Also Concerned. — Nor is the habit of do- 
ing confined to the manual-arts side of the school. A 
semester's work in language or history, if required, 
has no special significance so far as the execution of 
one's own plans is concerned. But with the elective 
system every study becomes an object of choice and 
its completion, in a measure, the carrying out of one's 
own plans. Initiative and execution are the natural 
order of the day. The vitalizing effect on boys who 
lean to classics is almost as marked as on those of me- 
chanical bent. 



188 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

Intimate Relation with Teachers. — All this choos- 
ing, all these activities, mean constant counseling with 
the teachers. The intimate relation of pupils and 
teachers is one of the main vital elements in character 
formation. Had you thought of it, there is no occa- 
sion to counsel with a teacher when the course of 
study is fixed? The natural thing is to regard a 
teacher as the exponent of a study and if it is disagree- 
able, an otherwise happy relation becomes strained. 
But, where the power of choice is free, a boy's teach- 
ers are in the lines he has chosen, so why should he 
oppose them ? Moreover the faculty contains scholars, 
artists, musicians, mechanics, draftsmen, chemists and 
artisans. It is so much more likely that a boy will 
find a congenial spirit in such a group than in a group 
of scholars only. Intimate friendships, prized by both 
sides, spring up naturally and easily. This means real 
training, a rooting in the boy's character of whatever 
is strongest in the teacher. 

Relation to the Home. — It has already been men- 
tioned that the vocational counseling with boys reaches 
out to the home. This is not to be overlooked in the 
making of a boy. It is not only that the boy learns; 
the parents learn, too, and take a more concrete, sym- 
pathetic interest. A school has to educate older people, 
as well as young. Over and again a home not given 
to encouraging education is won by a little thing which 
a boy makes and contributes to its daily convenience. 
The thing the boy is doing at school seems so much 
more comprehensible to a hard-working father and 
mother if they can see a table or a lamp he has made. 
It may be foolish, but it's true. The boy is not so apt. 



MANUAL-TRAINING HIGH SCHOOL 189 

either, to feel above a parent ill versed in books, if he 
is daily reminded that simple usefulness is worth striv- 
ing for. It's a pitiful thing for a boy to be educated 
away from the world where his folk live. 

The Community Touch.— But school and home 
are not enough for a boy in his teens. He longs to 
know the world. He dreams of its bigness. He wants 
to hear the buzzing of its wheels. The very fact that 
a vocational school has to reach out to the alluring ac- 
tivities of a city makes it satisfying. Any building- 
trades school, for instance, has to have back of it the 
local builders of the place. This "get-together" move- 
ment of school and community means much to the 
teacher, much to the artisans, but most to the boy. 
Life, his life, is touching the world, that world of his 
dreams, where skyscrapers are built and railroads span 
continents. His own city becomes to him a school, 
its activities, not to be idly dreamed about nor longed 
for, but to be learned. To the mechanical boy this 
means procuring a place later ; the contact with men he 
needs to know. But perhaps to the dreaming boy the 
deepest service to character is rendered. It is a tragic 
thing for a boy who is going to have to earn a living 
to dream and dream and never know the world until 
one day he wakes up to call it a hard place, no place 
for an idealist to live. If that same boy can have a 
touch with the earth added to his dreaming in his 
teens, he will not see fewer visions — ^he will see them 
longer. It was a pathetic thing when Bibbs Sheridan, 
who was a real idealist, was thrown into the industrial 
life of a factory. He saw in it not one thing which 
connected with his mind world of beauty and writing. 



190 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

"I've been to see an artist who paints the smoke," 
Mary Vertreer tells him. "He just paints what's 
around him and it's beautiful. . . . He sees the sky 
through it somehow. He does the ugly roofs of cheap 
houses through a haze of smoke, and he does smoky 
sunsets and smoky sunrises . . . and he has others 
with the broken sky line of down-town all misted with 
the smoke and with pufifs and jets of vapor that have 
colors like an orchard in mid-April." 

"You're showing me the city," said Bibbs, "I didn't 
know what was in it at all." 

The world needs these dreamers when they have 
learned to mix dreams and reality so that they can see 
the sky through the curls of smoke. If the doing and 
dreaming have been practised together from choice, 
the boy will go on seeing visions when he has to do 
from necessity. The community touch, then, serves all 
our boys. 

Social Life. — Foolish as it may seem to some of 
their elders, boys in their teens will think of girls too, 
and the inter-relation of the two sexes is no fit subject 
for jest. It is mixed up with the deepest of the char- 
acter elements. It is a part of vital life. Now, when 
boys and girls are entirely separated in school, it 
means that their inter-relations are either supervised 
by the home, which is quite right, or are not supervised 
at all, which is very common. When they meet in 
every class, it is perhaps not so easy for a certain 
idealism to be maintained. Certainly the gallantry of 
Scott's novels is not so readily fostered. But, when, 
by wide range of studies, boys are naturally alone in 
their heavier occupations and are with girls in some 



MANUAL-TRAINING HIGH SCHOOL 191 

of their classical work, in auditorium exercises, in 
their class organizations, in part of the literary or- 
ganizations, in some of the musical and art activities — 
really, it seems to us a happy medium is reached. This 
has been alluded to before, but it deserves second men- 
tion here. Boys need to be acquainted with girls. 
They will be, of one kind or another. Many a son of 
good parents has but little opportunity outside of a 
school to meet the girls he ought to know. The social 
life of a large high school is just as much a part of the 
character-forming training as is any other phase. The 
main part of the acquaintance naturally comes through 
classes and after-school organizations. In the manual- 
arts schools with whose social activities the writer 
happens to be most familiar, the class, school and club 
functions are afternoon affairs; the decorations are 
home-made but often quite effective, having their 
origin in the art department; the simple dances are 
those taught boys and girls in their separate gym- 
nasium classes; the special features of entertainment 
are worked out by the pupils in conjunction with some 
enthusiastic teachers who are gifted with social leader- 
ship. The very fact that boys and girls meet in this 
way other boys and girls with whom their home life 
would not bring them, means a breadth of wholesome 
acquaintance, a knowledge of people "not in our set." 
The affairs being in the daytime, there is no need of 
escorts for girls, no occasion for "coupling off." It 
is a simple, natural social acquaintance which may, 
and often does, ripen into something more in later 
years. It is, however, a matter of common observa- 
tion that boys and girls who have simple natural asso- 



192 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

ciations together are not so apt to seek questionable 
places nor to have too early love affairs as are those 
boys and girls who are restrained from normal asso- 
ciation. 

Kinship of Doers. — The children of a cosmopolitan 
high school surely ought to be able to understand the 
prologue to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. It was 
spring-time, the poet tells us, and, bent on a common 
journey, there were gathered together in one company 
knight and yeoman, nun and prioress, priest, mer- 
chant, squire, clerk, country gentleman, cook, haber- 
dasher, carpenter, shipman, doctor, housewife, pastor, 
plowman, lawyer and folk of other walks. Spring- 
time and human life of every kind— these are enough 
for a poem ; they are none too much for a school. Has 
it ever occurred to you what it means to a boy to live 
in a miniature world like that for four years? Well 
enough did Chaucer know that the tales told by men 
in other occupations are filled with interest. It is ideal 
for friendships to leap over all boundaries of occupa- 
tion. There is a kinship between doers the world over. 
The feelings of an inventor who has just perfected a 
great machine, a musician who has crystallized his 
feeling in sound, and of a poet who has caught his 
fancy in words are not so far apart. There is some- 
thing in the pursuit of every subject over and above 
technique. There is a joy of conception, a perseverance 
in execution, a nerve strain, a rapture of accomplish- 
ment. That's why there can be such real compan- 
ionship between people whose occupations differ so 
widely. You wish a boy to have a sympathetic insight 
into many lives ? Then let him do his level best in one 



MANUAL-TRAINING HIGH SCHOOL 193 

line himself, and be friends with doers In other fields. 
Friendships do not lack much of forming the best part 
of the education of a boy in his teens. 

An "Introducer." — Do you see in this any training 
for life in a democracy? Right beside the boy who 
is taking auto construction because he wishes to under- 
stand his father's Packard touring car, works a boy 
who will run a Packard truck instead. Along with 
the boy who Intends to make printing his trade, studies 
the boy who will Inherit his father's printing establish- 
ment. David Grayson presents a bit of sane philos- 
ophy when he says that the title he covets for himself 
Is that of "Introducer." The occasion for saying this, 
Is that there Is a great strike in progress in a city which 
he visits. The suffering promises to be intense. Each 
side looks on the other as unreasoning and. In a sense, 
abnormal. Mr. Grayson has happened to meet the main 
employer, has been entertained In the home, knows how 
beautiful and charming both he and his wife are, how 
lovable. He has also met the strike leader, and knows 
his sterling honesty, his keen mind, his downright 
worth. He conceived that the great strike would end 
if only these two men could meet naturally. He auda- 
ciously arranges the friendly Interview, only to have 
each party separately decline later for reasons of 
policy. I fancy Mr. Grayson found them too late In 
life. They're easily introduced in their teens. After 
all, perhaps that's just what the manual-arts high 
schools are, "Introducers," making the graces of each 
group of workers apparent to those who toil In other 
fields. 



The Church School 

By Eric Parson 



The Church School 



CHAPTER I 

HISTORY 

IN AMERICAN education the term "church school" 
has been appHed to a definite type of secondary 
school which has grown up under the influence of the 
Episcopal Church. During the latter half of the nine- 
teenth century, institutions of this type, with the 
same aims and ideals, have sprung up with such rapid- 
ity that already we have come to recognize a prominent 
type of school, distinguishable from the earlier paro- 
chial schools, the high school, the academy and the 
tutoring school. Like the parochial school, the church 
school has been the outgrowth of a single religious 
denomination, and religious instruction has played an 
important part in its educational scheme. Unlike the 
parochial school, it has, from the beginning, been a 
college preparatory school, and its pupils in the major- 
ity of cases have looked forward to courses at the uni- 
versity. 

Rapid Growth of This Type. — The growth of the 
church school has been rapid and consistent. Each year 
sees new institutions of this type established, and in 
New England, where the development has been most 

197 



198 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

marked, they have been an important "feeder" to the 
university. Graduates from Groton, Pom fret, Salis- 
bury, St. George's, St. Mark's and St. Paul's are taking 
degrees each year at the important universities and col- 
leges of the East. Furthermore, the number of schools 
has increased steadily since 1855, when the state of 
New Hampshire passed an act to incorporate St. Paul's 
School. At least fifteen institutions were represented 
at the last meeting of the bi-yearly conference of 
church schools. 

Its Origin. — The history of this type of institution 
is the history of a philosophy of education which, pre- 
vious to the church school, was held by the founders 
of the Catholic parochial school. The Roman Catho- 
lics, since the founding of the so-called Episcopal or 
Cathedral schools in the Middle Ages, have believed 
that in combining religion and education the school 
best serves the community, and in the seventeenth cen- 
tury in France the Jesuits and the Jansenists scarcely 
distinguished between church and school. For the 
most part, however, there is little in common between 
the older parochial school and the American church 
school. Both assert, it is true, that education should 
be at once secular and religious, that education for life 
must embody religion if boys are to be religious; yet 
the future activities of the pupils who attend these two 
types of schools, the character of the instruction, both 
secular and religious, the content of the curriculum 
and the activities of the pupils outside of the class room 
are so fundamentally different that one recognizes two 
entirely distinct types. The American church school 
is not, therefore, an outgrowth of the Catholic pare- 



THE CHURCH SCHOOL 199 

chial school ; its origin is purely American, and its de- 
velopment comparatively recent. 

The Founding of the Round Hill School.— Early 
in the nineteenth century, when secondary school edu- 
cation in the United States was in its infancy, one man 
was impressed by the value of basing educational prac- 
tise upon the theory that education and religion should 
not be things apart in the lives of schoolboys. This 
man, Mr. J. G. Cogswell, founded the Round Hill 
School at Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1823, and 
for ten years conducted it with success. At that time 
there were, in New England, few private schools which 
aimed to give both religious and secular instruction. 
For this reason, and because of the beautiful surround- 
ings of Round Hill and the simplicity of the life, boys 
came from as far as Boston to attend the school. One 
of these was George Cheyne Shattuck, who, previous 
to his coming to Round Hill, had been a pupil at the 
Boston Latin School. 

Activities at the Round Hill School. — When this 
boy went to Northampton in 1823 he found a school 
which, though it had been established but three years, 
had an excellent reputation among the private sec- 
ondary institutions of New England. He found, more- 
over, a school greatly to his liking ; the open fields, the 
hills and woods, the freedom of the country after city 
streets, the outdoor life during recreation hours — 
these things struck his fancy and made him at once at- 
tached to the place. The life of the boys, too, pleased 
him ; for the relationship between master and boy was 
one of harmony and good will. An early letter tells us 
something of the life at Round Hill. "Our number is 



200 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

twenty-five, of which fifteen are with us altogether, 
and ten scholars from the village. We rise at six and 
meet soon after for prayers, study till eight, at which 
time we breakfast, then play till nine; from nine till 
twelve study, dine at half past twelve, play till two; 
from two till five study, sup at half past five, play till 
seven, and then assemble for the evening occupation, 
which thus far has been reading only. ... A 
little before nine (the boys) are dismissed and go to 
bed." 

Quality of Instruction. — The prospectus of the 
school for 1823 says that "the aim of the school is to 
preserve the health and improve the moral and mental 
powers of the scholars. We must, on receiving the 
charge of them, be to them as parents. The methods 
of discipline," the prospectus goes on to say, "must be 
parental. There is no difference between severity and 
strictness. The one may be gained by the frequent use 
of punishments, while the other is best secured by gen- 
tleness and example. The relation of the pupil and the 
tutor is that of the weak to the strong, of him who 
needs instruction and defense to him who is able to 
impart them. Keeping this principle in mind, we shall 
endeavor to govern by persuasion and persevering 
kindness." 

Objects of Instruction. — The prospectus states, 
furthermore, that the first and most necessary objects 
of instruction are "to read, to write, and to speak Eng- 
lish with correctness, and, if possible, with elegance." 
The great masters of prose and verse furnished models 
for the scholars. "However much attention may be 
claimed by other studies, we must always bear in mind 



THE CHURCH SCHOOL 201 

that nothing can supply the want of a thorough knowl- 
edge of our mother tongue." The study of the Greek 
and Latin classics was second in importance, since 
"they form the basis of learning and taste, both for 
their antiquity and their intrinsic excellence." So 
much is known about the curriculum, which in many 
respects resembles the curriculum of the church school 
of to-day. 

Em.phasis Upon Outdoor Activities. — There were 
many physical activities in which master and boys 
participated together. Outdoor games — running, 
climbing and tramping — furnished the exercise which 
the head master required of each boy. "Neither 
cold nor rain nor snow keeps them indoors at hours 
assigned for play," one early letter says ; and through- 
out these hours of play the master supervised and took 
an active part in the recreational activities of the pu- 
pils. Schools which are the descendants of this pioneer 
in education have constantly emphasized the impor- 
tance of physical activities. 

Moral Instruction. — Though the Round Hill 
School was not, strictly speaking, a church school, 
it laid much stress upon moral teaching and re- 
ligious instruction. The school prospectus says: 

"As the fear of God is the most sacred principle of 
action, there is none which should be developed with 
more care. Each day will begin and end with devo- 
tional exercises. The Lord's day must be sacredly ob- 
served, and the exercises of public worship constantly 
attended." 

The School's Head Master.— We are told that the 
failure of the school after ten years was due to inade^ 



202 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

quate financial support rather than to the principle 
upon which the founder based his educational prac- 
tises, or to the personality of Mr. Cogswell. A pupil 
of the school, writing many years after the school 
closed, said: "All Round Hillers, as they love to call 
themselves, agree in attributing to the singular combi- 
nation of admirable qualities in the character of Mr. 
Cogswell (the school's) prosperity and success. He 
was a man who united . . . the qualities of the 
man of study and of action. So completely, without 
attempting in any manner but by the direct display of 
his own character, did he win the respect and confi- 
dence of all his many scholars (that) not war, not dis- 
tance, not time, could ever break the bond which bound 
them to each other." 

St. Paul's. — When Mr. Shattuck was looking for 
a school for his children, some years after the Round 
Hill School had closed, he conceived the idea of estab- 
lishing an institution similar to the Round Hill School 
at his own home — a beautiful spot, ideally situated for 
his purpose. The site, a plot of fifty-five acres on the 
road from Concord to Dunbarton, New Hampshire, 
was situated in a fertile valley with imposing hills on 
every hand and a large river near by. "Green fields 
and trees, streams and ponds, beautiful scenery, flow- 
ers and minerals are educators," writes Mr. Shattuck ; 
and again: "Physical and moral culture can best be 
carried on where boys live with, and are constantly 
under the supervision of the teachers, and in the coun- 
try. The English public schools of renown, such as 
Eaton, Rugby, Harrow, Winchester, and others, with 
their extensive playgrounds, show the advantage of 



THE CHURCH SCHOOL 203 

such a situation." After lands and buildings had been 
provided for the foundation of a school modeled after 
the Round Hill School at Northampton, the first im- 
portant step was the selection of trustees. The bishop of 
the diocese, the rector of St. Paul's Church, Concord, 
the judge of the United States district court in New 
Hampshire, the chief justice of Vermont, a judge from 
Connecticut, and four gentlemen from Boston were 
the first trustees of St. Paul's School. We are told that 
the task for the trustees was a big one ; there was no 
endowment, and only seven boys were ready to enter 
the school. Much depended upon the choice of the 
man who was to act as the head master and rector. 
The trustees apparently made a wise choice in selecting 
the Reverend Henry A. Coit, a clergyman who had 
been trained at St. Paul's, College Point, and at St. 
James, Maryland. At the outset. Doctor Coit was told 
by the trustees : "You have possession of the land and 
buildings, but we can not promise you a salary, and you 
must derive your support from the fees of the schol- 
ars." Thus in April, 1856, the first term began. 

The Personality of Doctor Coit. — As the success 
of the Round Hill School, during its ten years of pros- 
perity, was due in large measure to the personality of 
Mr. Cogswell, so at St. Paul's the success of the school 
in its early days was due to the individuality of its first 
head master. We are told by a graduate of the school* 
that Doctor Coit was a man who observed everything, 
"especially the individualities of the boys, about whom 
he acquired a preternatural astuteness. He lived 



* The Influence of Schools, John Jay Chapman. 



204 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

within the solitude which a great purpose and con- 
stant prayer sometimes cast about a man," And again : 
"St. Paul's was not the creature of any age. It was the 
child of one man, who planted his house upon a hill." 
Throughout the history of the church school we find 
that the individuality of one man has been, to a large 
extent, responsible for a school's success. 

The Church School and the High School. — During 
the early history of St. Paul's the endowed private 
schools throughout the country suffered severe losses 
because of the rise of the free high school. The effect 
of the growth of the high school was felt greatest in 
the academy, which was quite unable to withstand the 
losses occasioned by the growth of this new type. Few 
academies survived to become important factors in 
education, for the content of secondary school instruc- 
tion, with the growth of the high school, became broad- 
ened and enriched, and the quality of its teaching was, 
in the main, superior to that of the academy. Further- 
more, the economic groups to which the academy and 
the high school appealed were identical. For these rea- 
sons the development of the academy ceased when the 
free high school came into being. The church school, 
however, was little affected by the rise of the high 
school. St. Mark's, founded at Southboro, Massa- 
chusetts, in 1865 by Mr. Joseph Burnett, and Groton 
School, founded in 1884 by Reverend Endicott Peabody 
at Groton, Massachusetts, developed rapidly into insti- 
tutions of importance among the preparatory schools 
of New England. Both Groton and St. Mark's, like 
their predecessor, St. Paul's, and like the many church 
schools which have subsequently come into existence, 



THE CHURCH SCHOOL 205 

make their appeal to a social group which the high 
school does not reach. 

Causes for Development of the Church School; 
(1) Its Demand for Union of Secular and Religious 
Education. — Within the church school the rapid de- 
velopment has been accounted for by a demand for 
the union of secular and religious education. In the 
early history of American schools, children were 
taught by the clergyman of the community, because it 
was more economical to have them so taught and be- 
cause the clergyman, more than any one else in the 
community, was best suited to teach. There was, fur- 
thermore, the firm belief that religious instruction was 
essential to education — that education and religion are 
one. As far back as the Protestant Reformation the 
consensus of public opinion was that religion should 
be the basis of elementary vernacular education, and 
throughout the history of English and American 
schools there has been a persistent though not gen- 
eral demand for private institutions which emphasize 
religious teaching and religious worship. The early 
church school was successful because of this demand. 

(2) Success as a College Preparatory School. — 
There are, however, other causes for the development 
of this type of school, and not the least of these is the 
success which it has had as a college preparatory 
school.* Boys enter Harvard, Yale and Princeton 



* At Harvard during the past year thirty-seven per cent. 
of those who entered from Groton are placed on the honor 
list for the quality of work done on entrance examination ; 
for the same year twenty-five per cent, of the undergraduates 
entering from St. Mark's are on the honor list. This type of 
school has few failures in college entrance tests. 



206 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

without difficulty from church schools. The thorough- 
ness of the drill throughout a course of six years and 
the quality of a curriculum which permits of concen- 
tration upon a comparatively limited field of study are 
in a large measure responsible for this success. The 
knowledge that the training at church schools is secure 
preparation for college has been an important cause 
for the rise of this type in America. 

(3) Social Advantages. — There is another cause 
of this development. Life at the university is a life of 
broad social intercourse, and participation in non- 
scholastic activities has become important in the social 
life of the undergraduate. The boy who spends six 
years at a school from which each year a large major- 
ity of graduates pass to the university and into which 
flow university traditions is well prepared to enter into 
undergraduate activities. Realizing this, parents who 
can afford the tuition are desirous of having their sons 
enter schools of this type; and boys desire to avail 
themselves of the advantages which the graduates of 
church schools possess as undergraduates in the uni- 
versity. For these reasons the growth of this type of 
school has been both rapid and sure. 



CHAPTER II 

AIMS 

THE brief history of the church school given in 
the preceding chapter has been, as the reader 
observes, a history of the institution, not a history of 
the educational ideals of the school. This type of in- 
stitution has had a formal or static conception of the 
nature of education, and the development of theory 
has been comparatively unimportant ; Pestalozzi, Her- 
bart, Spencer, Huxley, have had little place in the 
church school's history. The early educators who 
created this type of institution thought (1) that in- 
tellectual development best comes by the application 
of formal discipline, i. e., that studies are to be 
chosen and taught with the aim of exercising faculties 
and without regard to their practical usefulness ; (2) 
that the pupils' complete moral development can best 
be achieved through the influence of the Episcopal 
Church; and (3) that the maximum of physical de- 
velopment is to be gained by assigning definite hours 
for enforced exercise. 

General Aims of the Church School.— Now the 
church school of to-day believes in the theories upon 
which the early school was founded, and the moral, 
physical and intellectual training which a boy gets is 
determined by applying the doctrine of formal dis- 

207 



208 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

cipline to all school activities. The educators who 
have been instrumental in developing this type have 
aimed to regulate activities in such a way that the 
life of the individual, both in and beyond the school, 
will be a life of service. "The founder," says one 
deed of gift, "is desirous of endowing a school of 
the highest class for boys, in which they may obtain 
an education which shall fit them for college or busi- 
ness, including thorough intellectual training in the 
various branches of learning; gymnastics and manly 
exercises adapted to preserve health and strengthen 
the physical condition; such esthetic culture and ac- 
complishments as shall tend to refine the manners and 
elevate the taste, together with moral and religious in- 
struction." The church school, it will be seen, aimed 
in its early history "to fit boys for college or for busi- 
ness." At the present time this type of school does 
not hope to prepare boys in such a way that they may 
enter business at the end of their school course. 
Rather it aims (1) to prepare boys for college and 
(2) to create habits which will function in the world 
beyond the university. 

Emphasis upon Preparation for College. — The 
early history of secondary-school education accounts 
for the emphasis still laid upon preparation for col- 
lege in all types of secondary schools. The early 
grammar schools of England, the Boston Latin School 
(founded in 1635) and the Roxbury Latin School 
(founded in 1645), were essentially classical institu- 
tions, and as such they were college or university pre- 
paratory schools. Thus when we hear that in 1647 
the Colony of Massachusetts Bay decreed that every 



THE CHURCH SCHOOL 209 

town of over one hundred householders should "set 
up a grammar school, the master thereof being able 
to instruct youth as far as they may be fitted for the 
university," we appreciate the influence of the uni- 
versity upon secondary-school education at that early 
date. This influence reaches the church school of to- 
day to a greater extent than it reaches the high school 
and the academy, for the church school sends to the 
university and the college nearly one hundred per cent, 
of its graduates, whereas the high school sends (to 
put the figure high) twenty per cent. 

Influence of the University. — Just as the church 
school imposes upon the elementary schools which act 
as its "feeders" demands which affect the curriculum 
of the elementary schools, so the university restricts 
the curricula of the church school. The influence of 
university entrance requirements, which, according to 
a prominent educator, has caused the high school to 
fail,* is constantly felt in the type under discussion, 
which has aimed primarily to be a university, prepara- 
tory school. The prospectus of one important insti- 
tution says that the "course of study is arranged with 
the purpose of giving a thorough education and a 
preparation for admission to the universities, col- 
leges, and scientific schools of the country;" another 
says that "the full course of instruction is designed 
to cover six years, and to prepare for admission to 
the freshman class in university or college." The 
boys attending church schools expect to enter the uni- 
versity, and the reputation of the school to some extent 



* New Demands in Education, Chapter XIII, J. P. Munroe. 



210 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

rests upon the success of their entrance examinations. 
Not merely the curricula but methods of instruction 
are to a large extent determined by the university, 
and standards which the latter sets very often de- 
termine the important educational practises of the 
school. This pressure upon the church school has 
caused it to fail in completely solving the problem of 
secondary-school education. The complex problems of 
adolescent training are many; individual differences 
are apparent in all class rooms, and the needs of one 
individual are not the needs of his neighbor. Yet this 
type of school places all adolescents into the same 
educational mold and turns out individuals with iden- 
tical equipment and like habits of thought. In thus be- 
coming a "fitting school" for the university, it has be- 
come, to use one educator's words, a mere "tail of the 
university kite." One gathers from this that the church 
school is face to face with conditions which are still 
influencing all types of secondary schools. Thus one 
writer, who sees ruin to the high school if the uni- 
versity continues its unwise demands upon secondary 
education, says that "the college entrance examination 
is an incubus which stunts the lives and limits the 
careers of hundreds of thousands of children, and 
which keeps teachers at educational stone-breaking 
when they ought to be, and when so many of them 
would like to be, molding, and expanding, and il- 
luminating human lives." 

The Church School and Religion. — Now the 
church school has aims which are not associated with 
college entrance and which, in the main, distinguish 
this type from the high school, the academy and other 



THE CHURCH SCHOOL 211 

important classes of American secondary schools. We 
have seen that at Round Hill religious worship was an 
important item in the program of the school; that at 
St. Paul's, at Groton and at St. Mark's religious in- 
struction, from the beginning, has been linked with 
secular instruction. At the opening of each school 
year the pupils are told that the center of their life 
is to be the chapel, from which will radiate the teach- 
ings of Christianity. The founder of church schools 
in this country, Doctor George Cheyne Shattuck, 
writes: "Religious teaching and training for beings 
such as we are is all important. The things of this 
world are engrossing ; but boys ought to be trained not 
only for this life, but so as to enter into and enjoy 
eternal and unseen realities. The life of this world is 
short and uncertain. To live well here in the fear and 
love of God and with love to our fellow men is not 
easy, and teachers and instructors who have learned 
and practised the arts of so living and passing through 
this world as not to lose the things eternal are essen- 
tial to the success of boarding-schools." That religious 
teaching can not enter into the larger public schools 
of our country while there are scholars of a great di- 
versity of nationalities and religions, is unfortunately 
true. In the city schools, because of the mingling of 
races and religions, it would be unwise to teach the 
doctrine of an established religion. And yet in keeping 
religion apart from education the school is keeping 
religion away from life. The dualism of religion and 
education has arisen in the minds of the pupils because 
the public school, in its desire to offend none, has ban- 
ished religion from education. The church school, 



212 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

however, has taken a positive stand; it asserts that 
religion and education are one, and that the deepest 
human experiences are religious experiences. Thus 
one prospectus says : "Religious instruction and in- 
fluences are positive and continuous throughout the 
school course, and are in accord with the doctrine and 
discipline of the Episcopal Church;"* and another 
that "It is a school of the Episcopal Church, and its 
order and management are in conformity with the 
principles and spirit of the church."f "Can we not 
establish the habit of worship," says one head master, 
"and insure the continuance of the habit throughout 
the life of the man?" 

Habit and Discipline. — The church school aims to 
create right habits through the practise of the doctrine 
of formal discipline. "The end aimed at in any ra- 
tional scheme of education," says one educator, "is 
the formation of good character both mental and 
moral, with healthy bodies ; and character is based on 
habits. The studies pursued, the methods of teaching, 
the customs and regulations adopted, are chiefly valu- 
able in so far as they tend to produce certain habits. 
It is quite true that Caesar's Commentaries, the yEneid, 
the Iliad, Anabasis, are just works of literature; that 
the processes of elementary algebra and the truths of 
geometry are necessary for the prosecution of certain 
scientific studies. But their real value in the discipline 
of the boy's mind does not depend simply upon in- 
trinsic merit. The reason why the classics are so 
largely employed in education is because they are in- 



* St. George's Catalogue. 
t St. Mark's Catalogue. 



THE CHURCH SCHOOL 213 

struments which when handled by competent instruct- 
ors have power to form such habits as attention, in- 
telligent observation, and clear expression of thought. 
They have been found most useful in enlarging a 
boy's vocabulary, in cultivating his memory, in giving 
exercise to his judgment and other faculties, and in 
forming a taste for literature. A large part of what a 
boy learns at school quickly fades from his recollec- 
tion and is apparently entirely useless to him in after 
life. But the mental habits which he acquires through 
the use of his faculties, in learning and reciting his 
lessons, prove of the highest and most enduring value 
if he is taught in the right way. Good teaching, there- 
fore, is teaching which forms and cultivates good men- 
tal habits."* I quote this at length because it is a 
very concise statement of the doctrine of formal dis- 
cipline and the school's conception of the merits of the 
classical tradition. It will not be necessary at this 
point to trace the history of the classical tradition in 
the institutions of England and America. Winchester, 
the first public school in England, believed that the 
confines of education were not broad enough to include 
science, economics, and a study of human relationships. 
The world of men and of the things which we see and 
experience is not the world to master; Latin syntax 
is more important because of its disciplinary effect; 
and discipline is at the foundation of education. 

The Classical Tradition. — The theory still held to- 
day, that because a boy can gain a mastery over a dead 
language he stands an excellent chance of gaining a 



* History of St. Paul's School. 



214 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

mastery over every-day circumstances, was firmly be- 
lieved in the early days of secondary-school education. 
To-day this type of school has a firm faith in the 
theory, and one of its aims is to give each boy a thor- 
ough schooling in traditional studies. "He will become 
a better physician," says one head master, "if he has 
had this rigid classical training; time enough later, 
when he is in college, to let him follow natural in- 
clination." Thus the church school has possessed 
the classical ideal. Boys have gone out of our halls 
well equipped for the undergraduate collegiate course, 
and we have felt that some of our aims have been 
realized when the results of their entrance examina- 
tions are returned to us. 

The Church School's Faith in Formal Discipline. 
— The doctrine of formal discipline, or the "doctrine 
of the application of mental power, however gained, 
to any department of human activity"* has had an im- 
portant place in the history of education. It was prac- 
tised by the early schoolmen; it has been long em- 
bodied in the ideals of the classical education of Eng- 
lish schools and universities. The district schools of 
America still practise it to a large extent; the small 
college which discourages elective studies is firm in 
the belief that the theory is workable ; and the church 
school, which says that the study of Latin, Greek, 
mathematics and English grammar will develop quali- 
ties which are of service in all human activities, as- 
serts that the doctrine is valid. A common argument 
of those who defend formal discipline is as follows: 

* Baldwin's Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology — 
Formal Culture — De Garmo. 



THE CHURCH SCHOOL 215 

The discipline which Latin, Greek, arithmetic and Eng- 
lish grammar demand will develop perseverance, mem- 
ory, quickness of perception, judgment and like quali- 
ties; and since these qualities are essential to success 
in business, medicine and law, then the study of Latin, 
Greek, arithmetic and English grammar will tend to 
make capable business men, capable lawyers, and 
capable physicians. Another argument runs thus: 
"A" is an excellent physician; before going to the 
medical school he had an education based upon the 
theory of formal discipline; therefore, all men enter- 
ing the profession should have a classical education. 
The first argument rests upon a belief in what psy- 
chologists call a "generalized habit" — a habit which 
is a response to a number of different stimuli. For 
example, a boy after long practise may acquire the 
specific habit of producing neat English papers. The 
doctrine of formal discipline assumes that if this habit 
is once thoroughly established, it will function equally 
well in history and drawing ; that functioning success- 
fully here, it can not fail to insure neatness of person 
and attire; and that the habit of neatness thus in- 
grained upon the pupil will surely be carried over into 
maturer years. The extent to which the doctrine has 
been used in this type of institution will be made ap- 
parent when in the succeeding chapter the discussion 
of church-school curricula arises. The objection com- 
monly made to the doctrine of formal discipline is that 
it rests upon what psychologists to-day term a "faculty 
psychology." Supplanting this older belief is the so- 
called "functional psychology," which asserts that the 
mind is developed only through adjustment to given 



216 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

situations.* In schools of this type, success has come 
through the practise of formal discipline. The success, 
however, has been achieved because it is measured in 
terms of the requirements of colleges and universities, 
and these requirements in the main lay peculiar em- 
phasis upon the mastering of fact rather than the mas- 
tering of a highly approved method of study. The suc- 
cess of formal discipline has made firm the belief that 
the study of traditional subjects is the best prepara- 
tion for life beyond the school. 

Limited Interest in Pedagogical Theory Among 
Teachers. — There have been, however, dissenters 
from this belief in formal discipline. In some schools, 
teachers have become interested in recent progressive 
tendencies in education, and the ideals of individual 
masters in regard to the teaching process have become 
modified either through the direct influence of such a 
teacher as Walther at Frankfort, or through an awak- 
ened interest in recent educational literature. This 
spirit, however, has not been universal, and the science 
of pedagogy is still regarded by the majority of mas- 
ters in church schools as a science of doubtful value. 

Traditional and Obsolete Theories Have Deter- 
mined the School's Aims. — It is apparent from what 
has been said that tradition has played an important 
part in determining the nature of the church school's 
theory of education ; the classical tradition within the 
school, and a tradition, still persisting within the uni- 
versity, that those subjects which have been taught 
in schools of this type are the proper content of the 



* For a fuller account of formal discipline see Bagley's 
Educative Process. 



THE CHURCH SCHOOL 217 

preparatory-school curriculum. The persistence of this 
latter belief has forced the school to aim at examinable 
results, to place a premium upon the acquisition of 
facts which in the process of mastering are supposed 
to be of use because of their disciplinary value, and 
which, after they have been mastered, are of use as a 
vehicle to higher education. Here, in brief, is the edu- 
cational ideal of this type of institution. 

Physical Training a Part of Education. — The 
school has always believed that success in education is, 
to a large extent, dependent upon physical health, and 
from the beginning has aimed to preserve health and 
to eliminate all possibility of disease. With this type 
of school, physical training is primarily a part of edu- 
cation, and a careful supervision is kept of the welfare 
of each individual. Nor does the school assume that 
each boy will tend toward an average of physical 
health; the school is constantly inquiring into the 
means of keeping the condition of each boy up to a 
standard higher than the average. Departments of 
physical training, which supervise the boy's activities, 
aim to secure, through organized and unorganized 
games, the habit of physical exercise, and through the 
acquisition of this habit, the development of bodily 
poise and strength. Thus, in assuming the responsi- 
bility for the physical welfare of the adolescent, the 
school has aimed to keep broad the field of education ; 
it has asserted that the boundaries of education are not 
limited by the walls of the class room. 

School and Home. — Many parents and not a few 
educators are of the opinion that education should be 
confined wholly to the class room — that because a boy 



218 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS. 

attends his classes from nine until three he stands in 
a fair way of becoming educated, though during the 
remainder of the day he is left to the whims and 
fancies of his child mind. In aiming to educate the 
boy, this type of school has aimed to control all of 
his activities, to subject the moral, the physical and 
the intellectual being to the teaching process. In or- 
der to bring the individual under the influence of all 
of the fundamental processes of education the church 
school brings to bear upon him the influences of church, 
of home and of school, and the government of the 
school has been from the beginning the government of 
a well-ordered Christian home. The boy attending 
a school of this type realizes that the school com- 
munity is a home community, held together, from the 
youngest first former to the oldest teacher, by the force 
of its head master. A graduate of St. Paul's, writing 
about the spirit in American school life, says of the 
community to which he as a boy belonged : "The school 
was, at first, a mere extension of his (the rector's) 
family circle and of himself. Persons became attached 
to this family circle one by one; and whether they 
were boys or masters or servants, they thus one by 
one became members of a sort of invisible and visible 
church or brotherhood — a society of the sanctuary. 
. . . The whole system . . . was really no 
system at all, but only the unconscious working out of 
one man's nature in the formation of a school commu- 
nity. . . ." 



CHAPTER III 



ACTIVITIES 



IT is apparent from what has been said in the pre- 
ceding chapter that the church school aims to reg- 
ulate all of the pupil's religious, intellectual and 
physical activities, and through such regulation to 
establish desirable abiding habits. As long as the 
attendance at the school remained small it was possible 
for the head master and his associates to exercise a 
very personal influence over all pupils, to understand 
each individual's disposition, and to watch over the 
training and development of character with as much 
interest and vigilance as parents exercise in a well- 
ordered home. In some cases the school has weakened 
in this guiding watchful interest, because it has grown 
too large for a minute personal supervision of each 
individual. There is, however, little difference in the 
quality of the activities in the several church schools ; 
the activities discussed in this chapter though they may 
deviate to some extent from those of individual schools 
are nevertheless true for the type. 

Religious Services. — During the six years of school 
life the boy lives constantly in a religious environment. 
Short services are held in the chapel each day before 
the classes begin, and from these services no boy is 
excused. They consist usually of a hymn, the re- 

219 



220 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

sponsive reading of a psalm and the reading by the 
head master of three or four suitable collects from the 
Episcopal Prayer Book. Each boy, whatever his re- 
ligious denomination, is expected to enter into these 
services with enthusiasm. He soon comes to know 
the prayers ; the hymns and psalms become familiar 
to him; and soon this morning devotional exercise is 
as much a part of his life as the activities of the class 
room. On Sunday there are usually two services — in 
some cases three; and these, too, are obligatory. The 
Sunday morning service, which usually comes at eleven, 
consists of the Episcopal morning service and a ser- 
mon by the rector or a visiting clergyman. Evening 
prayer, which comes shortly after tea — usually at 
seven-fifteen — consists of the evening service of the 
Prayer Book. "Every pains is taken to have the serv- 
ices bright and hearty, and not too long. The ritual 
in use is simple, but it is meant to be reverent and dig- 
nified — to edify the congregation and not to furnish 
a spectacle."* In addition to these services, brief 
prayers come at the end of school every evening ex- 
cept Sunday. 

Religious Instruction. — Religious instruction, or 
sacred study, in schools of this type is compulsory and 
is a part of the regular curriculum. A typical course 
in sacred study for the six years is as follows :f 

First form. Heroes of Israel ; second form. Life of 
Christ; third form, Life of Paul; fourth form, Old 
Testament History; fifth form. Life of Christ (ad- 
vanced) ; sixth form. Christian Ethics. 

* Memorials of St. Paul's School. 
fThis course is given at Groton. 



THE CHURCH SCHOOL 221 

Throughout each year, portions of the New Testa- 
ment, hymns, collects and psalms are memorized. The 
studies are designed to bring to the pupil familiarity 
with the Prayer Book and the Bible, and emphasis is 
laid upon the mastering of a given amount of subject- 
matter. Not infrequently boys are asked to write a 
brief of the sermon preached at the Sunday morning 
service. This type of religious instruction is common 
to all church schools, and though the course in sacred 
study varies with different schools, the objects of this 
formal religious instruction seem to be to present ( 1 ) a 
general knowledge of the history contained in the Old 
Testament, (2) the life of Christ, and (3) the prin- 
ciples of Christianity and their application to indi- 
vidual and social life. Some schools have for the 
first and second forms a course in "Catechism, with 
questions on the Christian Covenant, faith and duty, 
and on the Sacraments."* The method of instruction 
demands a large amount of memorizing, and frequent 
written tests and reviews are given. 

Sunday at Church Schools. — Sunday at a church 
school presents few problems because of the many 
activities which are open to the boy. The total amount 
of time spent in worship is from an hour and three- 
quarters to two hours and a half, and for the remain- 
der of the day, exclusive of time spent at meals, boys 
are free to read, tramp, canoe or pass the day in a va- 
riety of ways which do not necessitate strenuous bodily 
exercise. A period of an hour at the end of the after- 
noon is reserved for letter-writing or reading, and in 



* St. Paul's Catalogue. 



222 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

the evening, after the regular evening service, the 
Missionary Society may meet to discuss the condition 
of the neighboring missions which the school is sup- 
porting, the status of foreign and home missions, or 
perhaps the prospect for a successful year at the school 
camp which the school maintains for the benefit of a 
group of needy children of New York or Boston.* Oc- 
casionally a prominent missionary addresses the so- 
ciety. 

Time Spent on Study. — During the week the total 
amount of time spent on study, in class and in prepara- 
tion for class, varies from five to eight hours daily, and 
of this time approximately three hours and a half are 
spent in morning school, which begins immediately 
after morning chapel and lasts until twelve-thirty or 
one. During this time there is usually one recess of 
from fifteen minutes to a half-hour, and perhaps one 
study or preparation period. The recitation periods 
are from three-quarters of an hour to an hour in 
length and are of the same duration for members of 
the first and sixth forms. There is a single study 
period in the afternoon, and from an hour and a quar- 
ter to two hours and a half are devoted to study in the 
evening. 

Method of Study. — During the study period a boy, 
more often than not, spends his time in studying a 
lesson from a single text-book and in mastering a 
given amount of examinable fact. If he is studying 
Latin, the assignment may be a number of lines to 
translate or a quantity of syntax to master, and during 

*Groton has such a camp at Asquam, N. H. during July 
and August. 



THE CHURCH SCHOOL 223 

the recitation period the boy is questioned on the con- 
tent of the lesson. Emphasis is laid upon drill and the 
disciplining of the mind by a mastery and recitation 
of definite assignments. The conventional method of 
"giving out" the lesson in a few words, by stating the 
lines to be translated, the problems to be solved or 
the number of chapters to be read and digested, still 
exists in institutions of this type. A boy is told to learn 
what the text in English grammar says about com- 
plements; he learns what the words of the book are 
and thinks he knows the difference between a direct 
object and a predicate nominative. When the time 
comes for an examination of the knowledge gained, the 
boy either delivers or fails. If he fails, he is sent to 
"detention," after the regular school hours, and studies 
for a definite time what he might easily have mastered 
under adequate supervision. Thus the teaching in the 
church school is almost universally of the examination 
type. 

Limited Application of Supervised Study. — The 
realization that this method of study is unsatisfactory 
has caused one school* to establish a period each day 
to be used as a period of study under supervision as 
distinguished from recitation. At the present time 
few schools have definite periods when pupil may in- 
terview master in the hope of learning more intelligent 
methods of study. Professor Judd of the University 
of Chicago has pointed out that algebra has been long 
recognized as a source of heavy failure In schools, and 
that failures have been accounted for by the natural 



* Groton has a period at the end of sQhpol in which masters 
piay instruct indiyiduals in method. 



224 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

incapacity of certain students for mathematical types 
of thought. "When a faihng student is carefully 
studied, however, it is found that his difficulty arises 
out of his inability to attack the problem. He does 
not know the elementary methods of algebraic manipu- 
lation. The class, in the meantime, is 'going through 
the book,' and the student gets hopelessly behind. The 
experiment in supervised study is an effort to correct 
the difficulties which have arisen in the past. The in- 
structor is with the student when he attacks the prob- 
lem. Difficulties are taken up together. There is no 
formal getting of answers, but there is a genuine at- 
tack on problems." In the institution where super- 
vised study has been tried the results have been de- 
cidedly favorable. The method, however, has had 
only a limited application. Church schools have by 
no means solved the problem of supervision. 

Limited Utilization of Interest. — The method of 
supervising the pupil's study is one of several signs 
in the church school of a very limited application of 
new and more efficient methods of teaching. The di- 
rect method in modern and ancient languages ;* a 
method of teaching English which until the last year 
of the course eliminates prescribed texts, disregards 
college entrance requirements, and organizes the classes 
into "reading clubs,"f whose purpose is to discuss 



*The direct method has been used successfully at St. 
George's and at Groton. 

fl quote from the Groton School Catalogue: "In the first 
five forms no books are prescribed, and, with rare exceptions, 
no two boys read the same book at the same time. The classes 
are organized into reading clubs, which discuss their reading 
from whatever angle seems profitable." 



THE CHURCH SCHOOL 225 

their reading from many points of view ; the teaching 
of the classics through the classical drama ; and finally 
the attempt on the part of a few masters to establish 
more profitable coordination between departments in 
order that the pupil will understand that the content 
of all teaching is, or should be, closely allied — these 
are indications that among a limited number of church- 
school teachers there is a realization of the need of 
methods based upon interest rather than discipline. 

Reasons for Efficiency in Intellectual Accomplish- 
ment. — Efficiency in intellectual accomplishment with- 
in the church school has been achieved in five 
ways: (1) through the pupil's innate desire of suc- 
cess, (2) because of his interest in the content and 
method of instruction, (3) because of the rivalry due 
to the marking system, (4) because of the pupil's de- 
sire to avoid the consequences of failure, and (5) be- 
cause of the pupil's desire to qualify for college. The 
first cause of achievement is least afifected by a method 
of teaching; thus the pupil desiring to succeed will 
strive to overcome all obstacles, and studies which 
are "against the grain" are no hindrance to success. 
The second cause of achievement — the pupil's interest 
in the content and method of instruction — is realized 
by those who advocate breaking away from imposed 
college requirements, and who uphold the new "read- 
ing-club" method of teaching literature, the direct 
method in teaching ancient and modern languages, 
and the teaching of language through the drama. In- 
terest in the content and method of instruction when 
aroused affects all boys because interest becomes then 
the vehicle of achievement. The third cause reaches all 



226 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS. 

boys in the school though It places emphasis upon the 
symbol of accomplishment and not upon a reality. The 
desire to avoid the consequences of failure involves 
the school's attitude toward punishments. Finally, 
the desire of the pupil to qualify for college has led 
this type of institution to place great emphasis upon 
preparation for the university and thus to gain a 
greater efficiency in intellectual achievement. Of these 
five causes the first, obviously, has no place in this dis- 
cussion of method. The second cause has not been at 
work sufficiently to warrant fuller discussion here; 
the direct method in language and the method of teach- 
ing language through the drama at present are in an 
experimental stage ; their use is limited to one or two 
schools; the "reading-club" method of teaching Eng- 
lish literature, though successful, has been employed 
in only one school; and cooperation of the various de- 
partments is not as yet a realized fact. 

The Marking System. — The realization of the third 
cause of intellectual achievement, i. e., the marking 
system, has led the school to lay great emphasis upon 
the grading of pupils. In the majority of institutions 
there are marks which indicate the pupil's standing 
for one week; and monthly marks, or in some cases 
mid-term marks, based upon the attainable standard of 
one hundred, are sent regularly to parents or guardians. 
The mid-term, or the monthly grades, are sometimes 
read aloud to the school and posted in a conspicuous 
place in the schoolhouse. The rivalry which this 
causes between individuals and between classes un- 
doubtedly raises the standard of the daily recitation, 
though it is a question whether in the daily success at 



THE CHURCH SCHOOL 227 

recitation and success in school and college tests there 
is an ethical value. Unquestionably the system of 
appraising each pupil's recitation and of making the 
recitation period a time when the teacher questions 
and pupil answers has a disastrous effect upon the 
continuity of discussion. Furthermore, its effect upon 
the pupil is to place before him, not the value of ob- 
taining learning, but the value of attaining a high 
grade, which for him means privilege and a greater 
freedom of activity than for the boy whose work is, 
say, below seventy. 

Detention. — The fourth cause for efficiency in in- 
tellectual achievement, i. e., the desire of the boy to 
avoid the consequences of failure, shows the church 
school's conception of the value and nature of punish- 
ments. Detention is the period after regular hours 
when the boy, because of failure to recite satisfactorily, 
must study his lesson or the portion of the lesson that 
he "missed." For the most part this period is not a 
period of supervision ; it is a period of drill, and the 
exercises done at this time are in reality punishments 
for negligence or error. Time is usually given each 
pupil and he is excused when this time has been 
served. In the majority of cases the work done in 
detention is not constructive; there is scarcely any 
supervision of study ; and in many cases the exercises 
required of boys are "copy" exercises, repeated, in 
the case of egregious errors, a number of times. The 
value of such work is seen in the recitation the next 
day, when the boy recites his missed paradigms cor- 
rectly. The disadvantages, though real, are not meas- 
urable. They are manifest when the boy spends much 



228 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

more time than is necessary in doing work which un- 
der the supervision of a master would be accompHshed 
with greater ease and to greater effect. 

Preparation, for College. — Finally, efficiency in in- 
tellectual achievement is gained because of the pupil's 
desire to qualify for college. This desire usually af- 
fects only boys in the last year of the school. The be- 
lief that the work at hand is of definite value to one 
who is about to enter college emphasizes a kind of per- 
verted utility aim of education. The boy sees little 
value in studying Csesar, Virgil and Xenophon; he 
questions the value of plane geometry and of Burke's 
Speech on Conciliation with America; and because in 
his opinion each subject should be interesting or useful, 
he finds that the majority of the subjects in the cur- 
riculum do not make their appeal to him. When, how- 
ever, he finds that a subject is to be used as a means 
of promotion to college, he is ready to attack problems 
which are not of great interest to him. The desire to 
qualify for college, therefore, raises the standard of 
scholarship within the school. 

The Curriculum. — The curriculum of a church 
school is not greatly different from the curricula of 
other American college preparatory schools. It de- 
mands more language and less science; and there Is 
less freedom in the choice of electives. The course 
runs throughout six years, and there are no studies in 
the church-school curriculum which are not in the list 
of examination studies of Yale, Harvard and the col- 
lege entrance board. At most schools Latin occupies 
more than one-seventh of the time devoted to all sub- 
jects, and the same may be said of English, French 



THE CHURCH SCHOOL 229 

and German. At a school of this type the combined 
science courses occupy less than one-twentieth of the 
total amount of time spent on all subjects. Latin and 
English are studied in each form, and (in the majority 
of schools) mathematics and a modern language. The 
following course of study is typical of American 
church schools: 

Form I — Latin, Mathematics, English, History, 
French or German, Geography, Sacred Study. 

Form n — Latin, Mathematics, English, French or 
German, History, Sacred Study. 

Form in — Latin, Mathematics, History, French or 
German, English, Greek, Sacred Study. 

Form IV — Latin, Greek,* Mathematics, History, 
English, Sacred Study. 

Form V — Latin, Greek, Mathematics, English, His- 
tory, Physicsf or Chemistry, Sacred Study. 

Form VI — Latin, Greek, Mathematics, English, His- 
tory, Physics or Chemistry, Sacred Study. 

It will be seen from this course of study that much 
emphasis is laid upon the traditional subjects. The 
needs and interests of present-day life in the pupil's 
own environment are not met. Nor does the curric- 
ulum work toward the broadening of the pupil's own 
individual activity. Civics, the industrial and fine arts, 
elementary nature study, drawing, geology, botany, 
zoology — these studies do not have a place in the 
church-school curriculum. So-called scientific courses' 
exist in some institutions, but in such instances the 
term "scientific" is misleading, for it serves merely to 
distinguish courses which have not a preponderance 
of science but a minimum of the classics. 



* Extra mathematics may be substituted for Greek. 

t In some institutions physics is not ofifered in the fifth year. 



230 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

Minor Studies. — There are minor studies which do 
not enter into the regular curriculum and for which 
the boy is not marked. Physical training — work in 
the gymnasium under professional instruction and cal- 
isthenics for five minutes during the morning — is a 
part of the day's schedule. Manual training* has been 
introduced into one church school. Music is taught 
an hour a week at some institutions in connection with 
the chapel choir, which is composed of boys of the 
school. 

Extra Activities. — Other activities not a part of the 
curriculum are the school paper, which afifords oppor- 
tunity for practise in writing and editing; debates 
throughout the winter term between rival clubs and 
between schools ; the museum society, under the super- 
vision of the science teacher; and the missionary so- 
ciety. Boys who are in good standing are encouraged 
to participate in these extra-mural activities, though the 
dull boy, to whom these activities are best suited, is 
discouraged from participating in them because of his 
low standing in the school and because of a real lack 
of time. Thus such a study as manual training, in 
many ways, fails to serve its purpose, for the boy 
whose grades are low is the one who is best served 
by this activity. 

Exercise. — During the recreation period the boy is 
supposed to be engaged in very active physical exer- 
cise. At one school "exercise blanks" are kept by 



* Groton has as part of the regular curriculum, printing 
(three hours per week) and bookbinding (two hours per 
week). For this work, however, no official credit is given. 



THE CHURCH SCHOOL 231 

boys, and each day the nature of the exercise and the 
time spent are recorded. At the end of the week 
squads are formed and those boys who have exercised 
sufficiently become members of a privileged squad. 
Under such a system both the amount and quality of 
the exercise are taken into consideration when the 
grading of boys is done. Other similar methods for 
keeping a strict supervision of the boy's physical ac- 
tivities are practised where the exercise-blank system 
is not in vogue. 

Dormitory Life. — This strict supervision of the 
pupil's activities is apparent, too, in his dormitory 
life. Groups of from fifteen to thirty boys are placed 
under one master, whose duty is to be in the dormitory 
as long as boys are there, and who sees that they are 
prompt in dressing, tidy and quiet while in the dormi- 
tory. His study is a gathering place for the boys in 
the evening, when boys and master read or talk for a 
half -hour before bedtime. Activities in the dormi- 
tory are carefully supervised, and penalties for late- 
ness or misdemeanor are given by the master in charge 
or by the prefects (sixth formers who assist the mas- 
ter in maintaining order among younger boys). Life 
in the dormitory is not wholly formal and disciplinary, 
however. The master in charge of a group of boys 
has an opportunity of exerting his personal influence, 
of adjusting the differences between pupils, of advis- 
ing in a friendly and confidential way, and of creating 
in the boy literary taste through the reading and con- 
versation in the evening. Such gatherings, which in 
some cases have a distinct educational value, are a 
feature of the life at a church school. 



232 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

Prefect System. — The prefect system of govern- 
ment used in a majority of schools of this type, gives 
to competent members of the senior class a nominal 
share in the administration of the school's routine. 
The senior prefect, always a micmber of the sixth form, 
is usually chosen because of his ability to handle boys. 
His duties are to assemble the school for meals, to 
give out notices regarding the physical activities of 
pupils, and to cooperate with the head master and fac- 
ulty in maintaining discipline throughout the school. 
The prefects assist the senior prefect and with him are 
occasionally consulted by the head master for the pur- 
pose of deciding upon minor disciplinary problems 
which may arise. The prefect system is not a system 
of self-government, and, save at the Kent School, 
pupils are given little opportunity of regulating the 
problems of school life.* 

Absence of Self-Government. — Nor will an ade- 
quate system of self-government be introduced as long 
as the importance of discipline is emphasized. Such a 
system as the one at the Kent School would solve 
many of the difficulties which a school of this type 
faces, though it would place an added burden upon 
the pupils whose prescribed activities at present are 
too numerous to permit of sustained, mature scholar- 
ship. An excess of imposed activities has militated 
against the development of high intellectual standards 
in the best students ; the added burden of self-govern- 
ment based upon rigid discipline would increase these 
activities and decrease the opportunity for intellectual 



* The Kent School, though it is a school of the Episcopal 
Church, does not closely resemble schools of this type. 



THE CHURCH SCHOOL 233 

pursuits. On the other hand there would be a de- 
crease in the extra duties of the master, to whom 
would come more freedom for scholarly pursuits and 
more opportunity for creative work, without which 
he must fail as a teacher. 

A School Day. — The regularity of a boy's life will 
best be understood by giving a brief outline of the nor- 
mal day's activity. The present order runs something 
as follows: The rising bell rings at 7:00; breakfast 
comes at 7:30; chapel at 8:30; and school begins at 
8 :45. School lasts until 1 :00, with a recess from 
10:30 to 10:45. Dinner comes at 1:15, and the time 
from 2:15 to 4 :30 is devoted to exercise. There is a 
period of study from 5 :00 to 6 :00 ; supper comes at 
6:15; and evening school lasts from 7:15 to 8:30, in 
the case of boys under fifteen, and from 7:15 to 9:30 
for others. Lights are out at 10:00.* It is observed 
from this program that each school day is planned 
rigidly and that the element of choice does not enter 
to a large extent into the life of the boy. He has 
definite periods for the preparation of his studies and 
stated periods in which he shall exercise. The cur- 
riculum leaves little to his choice, and little opportu- 
nity is given him to learn to choose wisely by choosing 
repeatedly. There are of course economic advantages 
in thus suppressing the pupil's choice; the curricu- 
lum is not so varied; fewer masters are needed; and 
boys are better prepared in those subjects which col- 
leges demand. The boy, it is argued, will later enter 



* This is no specific schedule. It is approximately the pro- 
gram for the day at all church schools. 



234 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

a world where undesirable tasks are to be done; and 
the training which he receives when he does tasks 
which are imposed will serve him well in the world 
beyond school and college. 



CHAPTER IV 

PLACE OF THE CHURCH SCHOOL IN EDUCATION 

THE place of any system of education in the 
whole of education can not be determined by 
applying a definite universal standard to that system. 
Thus one can not judge of the merit of the church 
school by applying to it the standards of any other type. 
One must consider the community which the institu- 
tion serves, the future experiences of the individuals 
of that community and the relation of this type to 
those phases of. elementary and higher education which 
are affected by the type. 

The Church School Not a Tutoring School. — One 
must at the outset distinguish between the church 
school and the tutoring school. There are in the 
United States, chiefly in the East, schools and school 
camps which aim solely to prepare boys for college and 
which are outspokenly tutoring or "fitting" schools. 
Some of these are institutions where boys spend only 
the class-room hours ; but for the most part they are 
boarding-schools, distinguishable from the academy, 
the high school and the church school. Such institu- 
tions aim to give their pupils sufficient knowledge to 
pass college entrance examinations, and some guaran- 
tee the passing of these tests. They take the place of 
the last years of the high school, the academy or the 

235 



236 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

church school; their theories of education are usually 
determined by a single instructor, and their curricula 
are determined wholly by college entrance require- 
ments. Success is measured by the per cent, of success- 
ful college entrance papers. Like the institution under 
discussion, the tutoring school aims to prepare boys 
for college. Here, however, the similarity between 
these two types ceases, for the aims of the tutoring 
school are wholly associated with entrance to the uni- 
versity ; the development of character and the prepara- 
tion for future service are not aimed at in planning 
its limited activities. 

The Church. Schoors Problem.- — The problem of 
greatest importance for the church school is that of 
placing the boy in an environment in which he will de- 
velop physically, spiritually and intellectually; of se- 
lecting the best material for instruction, and of using 
the best methods of instructing boys who will first 
enter college and later enter important business or pro- 
fessional fields. This question therefore arises : Are 
the curricula which the school offers, the methods of 
instruction, and the plan of life adequate for boys who 
make up the community? Has this group of schools 
employed the best type of education to meet the needs 
of its pupils? Those who have determined the policy 
of the school say that a specific formal type of educa- 
tion is of value to all individuals, irrespective of their 
future plans ; they do not acknowledge the wisdom of 
utilizing a varied curriculum and of permitting even a 
limited choice. The difficulty of finding a single type 
of education which will be of value to all is apparent. 
Individual difference"* are great, and the problem of 



THE CHURCH SCHOOL 237 

fitting each adolescent into the same mold is one which 
no theories have succeeded in solving. The problem 
of any school is to arrange its system of education so 
that desirable individual differences are cultivated, not 
suppressed ; it must foster such differences if its edu- 
cation is to be effective. Furthermore, it must consider 
the social and economic groups from which its pupils 
are taken. 

The Community Which the Church School Serves. 
— Although the church school is denominational, its 
pupils (unlike the pupils of Catholic parochial schools) 
are drawn from no single denomination. Because the 
tuition is high,* however, and because there are few 
scholarships which pay substantial stipends, the types 
of home represented are necessarily not so varied as 
one finds in free schools or academies. Thus the 
church school is unique because of the community 
which it serves. Of those who enter school, approxi- 
mately one hundred per cent, go to college, and of these 
a large proportion enter a profession or business. 
From the public school and from the parochial school 
boys enter a great variety of trades and professions. 
The instruction and the curricula in such schools 
should of necessity be different from the instruction 
and curricula in the type of school under discussion. 
It is apparent, too, that the problems which confront 
the church school are totally different from the prob- 
lems which confront other types. Thus the school says 
that vocational guidance is not essential, because the 
boy, before entering his business or profession, has 

*St. Mark's, $900; St. George's, $900; Groton, $950; St 
Paul's, $950. 



238 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

four years ahead of him at the university, and it has 
not felt responsible for the discovery of a boy's natural 
talents. This, it has maintained, should be the proper 
function of the university. 

Advantages of Serving a Single Social Group. — 
Since this institution does not aim to meet the needs of 
a variety of economic groups, it has a good opportunity 
of becoming acquainted with the peculiar needs of the 
group which it embraces. It can readily apply the 
same standards of daily living to all of the members of 
the school community, and it can exact of each pupil 
the same orderliness of habit, the same mode of living 
and the same external relationship to his fellows. Like 
the members of a large family group, the members 
of the school early develop a close community spirit, 
and each boy's life is soon regulated and adjusted 
to the lives of others. In this respect the church 
school has a distinct advantage over other types of 
schools where diverse groups or classes of individuals 
are represented : the complications which arise contin- 
ually in larger day schools are not to be found at the 
church school. Thus the mode of life is simple and the 
mechanical process of merely training boys is rendered 
comparatively easy. The system of educating a special 
group or class is obviously less difficult to establish 
than the system of educating representatives from a 
variety of groups. 

Disadvantages of Serving a Single Group. — This 
uniformity of life has, however, its disadvantages. Be- 
cause the problems are not always common to other 
types, teachers are kept out of touch with the problems 
which other schools face. This fact alone accounts for 



THE CHURCH SCHOOL 239 

much of the isolation of the church school in the larger 
educational activities; its conference bears no relation 
to larger teachers' associations, and teachers them- 
selves do not feel in sympathy with all that goes on in 
the larger educational world. Thus the master who 
visits an association composed chiefly of the public- 
school teachers of a large city feels that the common 
experience of boys at his school and boys at public 
schools is so limited that the problems which are faced 
by the public-school teacher are not the ones he must 
solve. Accordingly, the teacher is not in close touch 
with all that might be of assistance to him in his work. 
This absence of cooperation between this and other 
types of schools greatly affects the operations within 
the individual institutions. The various departments 
of the school, for the most part, lack organization, and 
there is little cooperation between these departments. 
In short, the masters and associations of masters are 
not en rapport with educational activities which are not 
directly associated with their restricted fields. 

Extra-Mural Supervision in High School, Acad- 
emy and Church School. — In attempting to function 
as church and as home, this type of school is to be dis- 
tinguished from other secondary institutions. The 
high school, save in a few instances, has not tried to co- 
operate with parents by advising what activities are 
best suited to this or that type of individual, although 
at the present time among some institutions west of 
Buffalo there is an attempt to correlate school work 
and work done within the home, to place more impor- 
tance upon outside activities, and in a few instances 
to grade this extra, accomplishment. Such a movement 



240 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

is by no means universal, and of the twenty-four hours 
of the day usually not more than six are given over to 
work which has any association with school. Few 
teachers are acquainted with the conditions of the 
home, the attitude of parents to the life about them, 
the companionships which boys form, the religion or 
even the occupations of the parents. In the academy 
the relation between intra- and extra-mural activities 
is closer, though for the most part the boy is free 
to come and go as he pleases, to choose his compan- 
ions from various economic and social groups, to 
attend whatever church he desires, to exercise when 
recitations do not interfere, and to study when he 
will : like the pupil of the free high school, he is given 
a liberty and responsibility which the church school 
does not permit. 

Advantages of Extra-Mural Supervision. — What 
are the advantages of an education which is extended 
throughout the whole day and which supervises activ- 
ities usually confined to the church, the home and the 
school ? The value of any education rests upon its abil- 
ity to give the pupil power to employ, in his proper en- 
vironment, knowledge which he has previously ac- 
quired ; to face new difficulties, and to meet and solve 
the problems of daily life. Now the church school, 
acting in its threefold capacity, has one decided advan- 
tage over other types of secondary schools. Boys seen 
at close range may be studied in all of their activities, 
and because the duties of the teacher are not confined to 
the class room, masters get a variety of points of view 
not possible in the case of the teacher in the academy, 
the free high school or any private school which does 



THE CHURCH SCHOOL 241 

not assume duties in loco parentis. Much has been said 
of the doubtful value of secondary schools which take 
upon themselves the duties of the home. One critic* 
of such institutions, who voices the common objection, 
says that "they are not developing in their best students 
as high qualifications on the intellectual side as the 
public high school does." Now the writer of this state- 
ment, drawing upon data furnished by Harvard Uni- 
versity, does not distinguish between the academy, the 
church school and the tutoring school, and he relies 
upon grades determined by "facts" rather than the 
proper handling of facts to meet a given situation. The 
real value, then, of this type of education can not be 
determined by searching the records in recorders' of- 
fices, though, as I have shown, its value as a college 
preparatory school may be so determined. Thus in 
estimating the school's place in education this question 
arises : Of what value is formal education in meeting 
the facts of experience? 

Disadvantages of Constant Supervision. — The 
transition from church school to college is obviously 
more violent than from high school and academy. 
From an institution where the power of choosing 
wisely has not been developed the boy is suddenly 
thrust into a community where this power is most 
needed. A pupil who enters the university from a 
school of this type has been forced to rely upon a 
routine, the only asset of which is its economy. During 
every hour of the day he has been guarded, and the 
power of choosing wisely has not been developed be- 



* The American Secondary School, Julius Sachs. 



242 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

cause he has not been allowed to choose repeatedly. 
At Harvard, where the elective system is unrestricted, 
or at Yale and Princeton, where there is a limited form 
of this system, the value of a training which allowed 
no choice and of a life where the activities were pre- 
scribed must turn upon the help which this life and 
this training afiford a pupil in an emergency. If the 
undergraduate is to direct his own education at the 
university, without competent advisers familiar with 
the peculiar needs of the individuals they are advis- 
ing, he must have had previously an education which 
emphasized the development of a guiding conscious- 
ness. He must, as Abraham Flexner* has pointed 
out, "be headed the right way; he must be able to 
take his bearings ; he must be trained actively to han- 
dle himself in a concrete situation rather than just 
passively to learn." Such a preparation must of ne- 
cessity precede a college education at the more radical 
institutions which have elective systems, and such an 
education is not given by the American church school. 
Disciplinary Religious Training Does Not Tend 
to Make Boys Religious. — Nor does the religious 
training in schools of this type tend to make the un- 
dergraduate actively interested in religious observ- 
ances. At Harvard, where attendance at chapel is 
optional, few undergraduates attend service regularly, 
if we may judge by graduating class statistics; and 
of these a small per cent, are members of denomina- 
tional schools. At Yale attendance throughout the 
four years is required ; and the opinion of undergradu- 



*The American College (The Century Co.)- 



THE CHURCH SCHOOL 243 

ates regarding religious service is of little value because 
of a college tradition which obscures the ethical value 
of obligatory religious service. Whether or not com- 
pulsory chapel attendance once a day throughout the 
school year militates against religious activity in col- 
lege where that activity is optional is not easily de- 
termined. Certainly the absence of choice in secondary 
school is not the best preparation for a complete free- 
dom of choice in college. 

The effort to substitute for the study of disciplinary 
subjects a wise use of electives which will meet the 
needs of every pupil throughout the school course and 
which will tend to develop gradually the power of 
choosing, has not been made in the church school as 
it has in some types of secondary schools. When the 
scope of secondary-school programs was increased and 
the narrow content of formal studies enriched, the 
church-school program remained constant. When the 
division was made of the high-school program into 
several parallel groups, or courses of study, in which 
were both or one or more of the classical languages, 
there was no corresponding alteration in the courses 
of study in the church school ; the only apparent change 
which took place as a result of a partial introduction 
of electives into high schools was the division, in a 
single institution, of one course of study into "classi- 
cal" and so-called "scientific" branches at the begin- 
ning of the fourth year of the course. 

The Church Schoors Attitude Tow^ard the Teach- 
ing of Science. — Now it is significant that few gradu- 
ates of church schools enter into the fields of scientific 
research. As undergraduates at the university they 



244 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

do not take advanced courses in science because in 
their secondary-school education there was little op- 
portunity to pursue courses other than those prescribed 
for college entrance. In minimizing the instruction in 
science the school limits the opportunities of its grad- 
uates ; and because comparatively few scholars follow 
up the elementary classical training with advanced 
training at the university, both science and the classics 
are in time neglected. Huxley, in an essay on Science 
and Art in Education, tells of the dissatisfaction in 
one school occasioned by the introduction of physical 
science into that school — even after experiment. "But 
the experiment consisted in this," writes Huxley, ''in 
asking one of the junior masters in the school to get up 
science, in order to teach it; and the young gentleman 
went away for a year and got up science and taught 
it." The attitude of that English school toward science 
was not unlike the attitude which our church schools 
assume to-day. 

Absence of Vocational Guidance. — Nor has the 
program been shaped by those who lay emphasis upon 
a utilitarian education. "Train the boy in the proper 
habits, and the utilitarian or vocational application will 
look out for itself when the proper time comes. We 
have nothing to do with the bread-and-butter aim of 
education ; that belongs to the business college, the tech- 
nical school, the agricultural school, the purely voca- 
tional school." And with such institutions the type 
under discussion has had little in common; its cur- 
ricula, its methods and its policy have separated it from 
schools which aim to prepare boys vocationally. 



THE CHURCH SCHOOL 245 

The Church School and the Elementary School. — 
The relation of the church school to the elementary 
school resembles in many ways the relation which the 
university bears to this type of school. Public ele- 
mentary education has been little affected by the pres- 
sure of higher education upon the high school. How- 
ever, elementary schools which aim to prepare boys 
for Groton, St. George's, Pomfret, St. Mark's or St. 
Paul's are affected indirectly by college entrance re- 
quirements. A definite set of arbitrary requirements 
has been made, and the smaller elementary schools* 
arrange their curricula so as to have the boy meet 
these requirements. English grammar, geography and 
arithmetic are universal requirements for admission 
to schools of this type, though no uniform examina- 
tions are at present given at the time of entrance. 
Thus the school is closely linked to higher education 
and to a number of isolated elementary schools — linked 
in such a way as to render the school which is affected, 
be it secondary or elementary school, less free to adapt 
itself to the peculiar needs of its pupils. 

Graduates. — Beyond the university, graduates of 
this type of school enter a variety of activities. It 
will be seen from the following data,t however, that 
approximately two-thirds of the graduates enter busi- 
ness (comprising banking and brokerage, law, general 
business, real estate and insurance, and manufactur- 
ing) : 



*For example, the Fay School at Southborough, Mass., St. 
Bernard's in New York City, and like elementary schools. 

t These statistics are taken from one church school. It is 
reasonable to expect that; in the main, the same ratios exist 
in all schools of this type. 



246 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

Profession Graduates Per cent. 

Banking and Brokerage 109 25^^ 

Law 70 16y3 

General Business 59 14 

Architecture 25 5% 

Farming 23 5^ 

Real Estate and Insurance 19 5 

Engineering 18 4^ 

Manufacturing 14 Sys 

Medicine 14 3j4 

Diplomacy 13 3 

Miscellaneous Professions 12 2^ 

Teaching 12 2% 

Journalism 10 2j4 

Ministry 9 2>^ 

Art 7 1% 

Army 5 1^ 

Navy 4 1 

The evidence which this table gives is that the oc- 
cupations of comparatively few graduates are enriched 
by a curriculum based upon the classical tradition, 
formal discipline and the complete supervision of all 
activities. Of the sixty-five per cent, who enter busi- 
ness, a large majority do so because business is their 
inheritance ; others because no natural talents for the 
arts and sciences have been discovered. These groups 
obviously would be much reduced if there were greater 
opportunity to choose. 

Permanence of the Church-School Type. — In sur- 
veying the status of the church school in present-day 
education one readily becomes assured of the perma- 
nence of this type. Its scholastic reputation among 
preparatory schools, its well-established and valuable 
equipment, its tradition, which a large body of well- 



THE CHURCH SCHOOL 247 

organized graduates keep alive, its connection with the 
Episcopal Church and its comparative wealth make the 
future existence of the school secure. It is a well- 
established, acknowledged type, and its history shows 
that it has arisen because of a demand for a system 
of secondary-school education which will serve as 
church, as home, as school and which will give ade- 
quate preparation for college. There is no reason to 
believe that the demand for such a type of school will 
cease. 

Elements of Change. — Within the school there are 
a few sporadic elements of change in the method and 
content of teaching. These, however, do not affect the 
daily life of the community. The atmosphere of the 
home and of the church will exist always because these 
are things which distinguish this type of school. What- 
ever real progress comes into its policy will be due 
in a large measure to the influence of head masters, 
faculties and boards of trustees ; the increase in en- 
dowments ; the foundation of a conference which will 
serve educationally; a more favorable attitude of the 
colleges and universities to secondary schools, and the 
consequent introduction of more freedom of choice ; 
the success of such present experiments as the teach- 
ing of manual training, the direct method in language 
and new methods of teaching literature ; and finally 
the relinquishing of a belief in formal discipline. 

Future Government. — The influence of the head 
master in determining the policy of the school has 
always been great. In other school systems the meth- 
ods of principals and teachers have been restricted by 
boards of trustees which wished to impose an unsci- 



248 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

entific management of the school upon those who pre- 
sumably were responsible for its maintenance. In the 
church school, however, head masters have been com- 
paratively free to bring about whatever changes they 
desired to make. The employing of masters, the se- 
lection and arrangement of curricula, the length of 
the school day and of the recitation periods, have been 
decided by the head master, sometimes in consultation 
with the other members of the faculty, sometimes 
alone. There is no reason to believe that in the future 
boards of trustees will change their policy. Thus, 
those policies which afifect the running of the school 
will be determined, as they have been determined in 
the past, by the head master chiefly, and to a small 
degree by the faculty. 

The Conference of the Future. — The policy of the 
general body of church schools, the institution's atti- 
tude to elementary and university education, and its 
attitude to educational problems as these problems af- 
fect all schools as a single organization will be deter- 
mined by the church-school conference. Progressive 
ideas of education will reach the body of church 
schools only as it reaches the congress of church 
schools — a congress which now aims to attack the 
problems of education, but which attacks these prob- 
lems ineffectually. The conference serves merely as 
an agreeable place where masters from various schools 
meet and talk about things of common experience. Lit- 
tle has been accomplished at these bi-yearly meetings ; 
little will be accomplished of value until the members 
of this body feel the need of obtaining a more com- 
plete knowledge of the science of education. In the 



THE CHURCH SCHOOL 249 

future the effectiveness of the conference will be in- 
creased only by more frequent meetings and by a co- 
operation with larger associations of teachers from 
other types of secondary schools. 

The Future of the School Depends upon Endow- 
ment. — The future of this type of school depends also 
upon endowment. Extra curricula activities which re- 
quire much expensive equipment, such as well-ordered 
laboratories, manual-training apparatus, printing estab- 
lishments, facilities for nature study — these things can 
come only through private endowment. At present 
the majority of schools are restricted because there 
is no school fund which can make possible the develop- 
ment of such activities. Only when such a fund is 
the possession of each school will there be a possibility 
of broadened and enriched curricula and of wider ex- 
tra-curricula activity. 

The Future of the School Depends upon the Uni- 
versity. — The attitude of the university to a large de- 
gree will determine the policy of preparatory schools 
in the future. A few universities at present, particu- 
larly those of the Middle West, are trying to break 
down the wall which exists between college and sec- 
ondary school. The universities to which boys from 
church schools go, however, have taken few steps to 
make easy the transition. If the university places 
more assurance upon the secondary school and abol- 
ishes completely the unwise examinations at entrance, 
the church school will be free of an outside restricting 
influence and will at least have the power of trans- 
forming a purely classical course of study into en- 
riched and broadened courses which will meet the 



250 3TPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

needs of a variety o£ individuals. This enrichment 
and broadening of the curriculum will not be assured 
by a progressive interest on the part of the university ; 
it will depend also upon the degree of faith in the 
classical tradition within the school and upon a read- 
iness to acknowledge the values of a new science of 
education. 

The Future of the School Depends upon Experi- 
ments now Being Tried in One or Two Schools. — 
To a certain extent the future of the school will de- 
pend upon the success of experiments which are now 
being carried on within certain schools. These ex- 
periments are not wide-spread; they affect few insti- 
tutions, and in these they do not attract a universal 
and an abiding interest. The direct method in teach- 
ing language seems to have gained the widest acknowl- 
edgment, and its success leads one to believe that in 
the future all church schools will come to adopt this 
method. The "reading-club" method of teaching Eng- 
lish has brought boys constantly into contact with our 
literature. Mechanical training, too, in spite of the 
opposition it has had, has shown that there are great 
possibilities of its development. The success of these 
experiments will cause individual teachers to place 
more emphasis upon methods and curricula which do 
not emphasize examination and formal discipline. 

Radical Changes not to be Looked for. — The his- 
tory of education has shown that systems of education 
are slow to change. Since the founding of the Round 
Hill School at Northampton, few important develop- 
ments have been made in the church school's theory 
of education, The life of the boy at a school of this 



THE CHURCH SCHOOL 251 

type is at present what it was during the early days 
of the Round Hill School, the curricula to-day are in 
general similar to the curriculum of Round Hill, and 
methods of teaching have changed but slightly. Nor 
is there evidence that the church school will suddenly 
be carried along by the flood of progressive educa- 
tional theory which has swept over portions of the 
land ; its foundations are too deep, its intellectual ideals 
too firmly established in classical tradition; and the 
security and prominence of its position militate against 
an immediate and radical change in its theory of edu- 
cation. 



The English Public School 

By J. J. FiNDLAY 



The English PubUc School 

CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTORY AND HISTORICAL 

THE theme of these chapters has always proved 
of interest to Americans. After Oxford and 
Cambridge there are probably no English institutions 
which attract more regard from visitors across the 
water than the English public schools, of which Rugby, 
Eton and Harrow may be taken as the best-known 
examples. For these venerable places have been the 
nursery of great Englishmen ; right through the nine- 
teenth century the great majority of men famous in 
war, in politics, in literature, owed their education to 
these academies and the devotion of alumni to their 
schools extended their fame far and wide. And al- 
though each of these public schools possesses peculiar 
features, they are not isolated from one another in 
standards and principles; rather they present us with 
a very distinctive type of social institution, sharing 
methods and ideals much in contrast with other sys- 
tems of schooling either in England or abroad. 

How the Public Schools Originated. — Roughly 
speaking they number about one hundred and educate 
some thirty thousand boys. The three schools men- 

255 



256 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

tloned above have a unique reputation, but they con- 
form in all essential particulars to the rest, some of 
which were founded only fifty years ago, while others 
date their origin further back, to periods more remote 
than any of these three. 

We must turn to an earlier page of English social 
history to discern the forces that led to the develop- 
ment of these remarkable communities. Before the 
nineteenth century the Englishman had always been a 
countryman rather than a townsman. The figure of 
"John Bull" displays what is still the ideal of many 
an Englishman : a man who lives on his acres, with 
sheep and cattle, with woods near at hand, with dogs 
and gun to hunt for game; a country squire, fed on 
beef and ale ; a country parson never reluctant to take 
ofif his surplice and don a riding jacket. Now such 
a man was always ready to send his sons away from 
home at an early age to a boarding-school, and in the 
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries most of the gram- 
mar schools, as well as the few famous schools in and 
about London which became distinguished as "public" 
schools, received boarders. 

And there was a special reason why this custom 
flourished in England while it made little headway 
on the continent. As compared with Germany or 
France, England was a safe country in which to 
move about. The last battle on English ground took 
place in 1685 ; and if the years 1643 to 1658 be omitted, 
there had been no serious fighting on English soil since 
the accession of the Tudors. Apart from London 
only Oxford and Cambridge became centers of lit- 
erature or learning ; for men and women preferred to 



THE ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOL 257 

live in the country, enjoying a quiet security which 
could not be paralleled on the continent until the end 
of Napoleon's devastating conquests. 

So the boys were commonly sent away to school. 
Even the wealthiest of the nobility followed this rule, 
and if the sons of a noble house, when little boys, 
had a private tutor, the tutor would often be sent away 
with them to the school as a special teacher and guard- 
ian. Despite the fact that many of the schools were 
ill-conditioned, with ushers badly equipped and badly 
paid, this kind of education was no doubt expensive. 
In fact, the cost of such schooling must have been far 
greater than that involved in the contemporary pro- 
visions afforded to sons of burghers in a German city. 
But it must be remembered that England of the seven- 
teenth and eighteenth centuries was a wealthy country ; 
the country houses built in those days still survive all 
over the Midlands and the South to show what re- 
sources the country gentleman had at his disposal. 

Learning to "Rough It."— Thus when we enter the 
nineteenth century we find a tradition firmly estab- 
lished as regards the education of boys, viz. : that the 
best course for an adventurous lad was to cut him 
adrift from home at a tender age and let him learn 
to give and take among his fellows, learning to "rough 
it," as the phrase ran. It was the strength of this 
tradition which prevented (what otherwise one would 
have expected) the development of efficient secondary 
schools at this epoch. All over the north of England, 
from 1780 onward, there was witnessed a rapid in- 
crease of wealth and of population. But, when a man 
secured wealth by manufacture or trade and rose in 



258 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

social station he did not seek a school for his lads 
close at hand ; he copied the example of earlier times 
in the South and Midlands and sought education for 
them in one of the London public schools or at Rugby, 
Winchester or Shrewsbury. 

The Schools a Hundred Years Ago. — The picture 
presented by these schools a hundred years ago is not 
pleasant to recall. The best of them no doubt secured 
the services of clergymen displaying sound learning 
and high character, but rarely did they add to these 
qualities any real interest in boy life; and the poorer 
sort of schools were staffed by men who could claim 
little respect either for their wits or their virtue ; when 
they maintained authority over their turbulent horde of 
scholars the only resource was brute force. The 
curriculum was the barren tradition of Renaissance 
scholarship, which at its best only laid hold of rarer 
intellects; while out of school a callous public opinion 
was content to let boys rule one another as best they 
might. "Seats and nurseries of vice" was the short 
and sharp judgment of these places, which a later age 
(awakened to its responsibilities toward English 
youths) has confessed to be accurate. Fortunately for 
the credit and good fame of England, reform had not 
long to wait. After the nightmare of struggle against 
Napoleon and the apathy of the decade that followed, 
the country experienced, in many directions, a period 
of moral reformation. The Factory Acts, the abolition 
of trade in slaves, the Reform Bill are evidences on 
a large scale of a profound movement in the social con- 
science. It is not surprising, therefore, that before 
1830, men had begun to demand some reform in the 



THE ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOL 259 

boisterous ill-bred child life to which their own sons 
were condemned when they left the shelter of home. 

The demand for reform was at first expressed in 
the universities ; for it was Oxford and Cambridge that 
supplied the masters to all these schools. Both these 
universities shared the revival of morals to which we 
have referred: the High-Church movement was not 
only a religious revival but a moral reformation, and its 
opponents were equally solicitous to restore Christian 
ethics, although they quarreled so bitterly over mat- 
ters of creed. Hence it is not surprising that Thomas 
Arnold was indebted to the moral and religious stir 
that pervaded the Oxford of his day for the new spirit 
of enthusiasm which enabled him to reform Rugby, 
and while so doing, to render an imperishable example 
to every English school. This was the Oxford of 
Gladstone, of Newman and of many another of less 
fame who helped to rescue England from the manifold 
distresses of a great crisis in national history. 

Hence it came about that the public schools, as we 
know them to-day, are essentially what they were made 
to be by the men who taught in them between 1830 
and 1850 ; of these, Arnold at Rugby was predominant, 
but he was not alone. Like other great men, his success 
was due to the fact that he was born at the right mo- 
ment. The public conscience was aroused, and he an- 
swered the call with a genius^and energy that were un- 
surpassed. In England it is rare for a man of great 
talents to devote himself to the service of children. 
Arnold had great ambitions, as he himself confessed. 
If he had remained a layman he would certainly have 
risen high in political service; he died at forty-six, 



260 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

and in addition to his work as a schoolmaster, he stood 
in the front rank as a historian. It is not surprising 
that a man of such insight and force should leave a 
permanent mark upon our educational system, although 
he only kept school for fourteen years. 

Arnold and the Public-School System. — We can, 
therefore, most readily grasp the ethos of this type of 
school by studying Arnold, and in this respect both 
Arnold and the student are fortunate in his biographer. 
Stanley's Life of Arnold is read wherever English 
biography is read at all, and in chapters three and four 
we have the essential elements of the public-school 
system. What is lacking in the biography can be sup- 
plied from Arnold's own writings, especially from cer- 
tain of the sermons which he preached in Rugby 
Chapel. 

We shall endeavor in a moment to review the prin- 
cipal features of this scheme of education ; but before 
doing so, let us complete the historical survey, by ob- 
serving how fortunate it was that this reformation in 
the public school took place when it did. For the 
stream of boys which we noticed as coming from the 
industrial North did not slacken as the century pro- 
gressed: on the contrary the wealth of England and 
the wealthy part of the population expanded to even 
greater proportions after the abolition of the Corn 
Laws. The public schools of old foundation were 
quite unable to educate all that sought to enjoy the 
benefits of boarding-school ; right through the century 
new schools multiplied on every hand, and a few such 
as Cheltenham, Clifton, Wellington rose rapidly to 
great honor: but many others were set on foot, by 



THE ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOL 261 

Methodists, Congregationalists, Quakers, as well as by 
private teachers. For a long time many of these last 
felt little or nothing of the reforming influence which 
Arnold and his contemporaries had inspired, but all 
the best were sooner or later affected by it, as we shall 
see when we come, in a closing chapter, to examine 
the public school as it stands to-day among other types 
of secondary schools which serve the nation's need. 

REFERENCES 

Stanley's Life of Arnold has been frequently reprinted. The 
present writer many years ago edited Arnold of Rugby, His 
School Life and Contributions to Education, including Chap- 
ters III and IV from Stanley, with Rugby Sermons and Edu- 
cational Essays by Arnold and a Bibliography. 

Bompas Smith, in Chapter XII of Sadler, Moral Instruc- 
tion and Training in Schools, Vol. I (Longmans, 1908), gives 
a clear account of the place of the public schools as a group 
among other secondary schools. 

Norwood and Hope, Higher Education of Boys in England, 
dealing with every aspect of public-school life. These two 
books serve also as references for Chapters II to IV. 

The Public Schools from Within (Sampson, Low and Co., 
London, 1908) contains papers of the same character as those 
in Norwood and Hope, but they are less comprehensive in 
scope. 



CHAPTER II 

DISTINCTIVE FEATURES OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL 

TO gain a picture of the life in a public school let 
us first take a visitor through the buildings. The 
most important will usually be the school chapel. 
Matthew Arnold's poem entitled Rugby Chapel shows 
what an intimate claim the chapel has upon the alumni. 
And all who have read Tom Brown's School Days will 
recall the sincere terms which the wild and rough lads 
of those days held with the sacred influences of their 
place of prayer. In adult life morals and religion can 
readily be distinguished, but the adolescent is not prone 
to make these fine distinctions ; hence the cultivation of 
religious feeling is never ignored, although the Eng- 
lish temperament, among both boys and men, tends 
to be reserved in its expression. 

The Equipment of the Schools. — The secular 
teaching is given in a series of class rooms and labora- 
tories such as are common to all good secondary 
schools, in Europe and America alike. There will 
probably be separate provision for a school library, 
for a school assembly hall, for a gymnasium, swimming 
baths, fives and racket courts and for workshops. 
Ample space covering many acres of ground will be 
secured for the national games of cricket and foot- 
ball. But a unique provision characteristic of the pub- 

262 



THE ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOL 263 

lie school will be found In the "houses," I. e., residences 
holding from twenty to sixty or more of the boys, 
each in charge of a senior master. The master com- 
monly owns the building and earns the larger part of 
his income out of the profits accruing from the pro- 
vision of board and lodging to his pupils. These 
houses are not always built on the school "campus," 
but will often be erected in neighboring streets just as 
in the case of fraternity houses that receive students 
attending an American college. The largest of such 
houses will be the residence of the head master and is 
often called The School House. In schools of old 
foundation, such as Rugby, this building was the orig- 
inal school, dating back to early times when one such 
schoolhouse was adequate to receive all the boarders 
that attended. It Is In this domestic provision, sep- 
arately organized from the arrangements for teaching, 
that we can best study the distinctive features of the 
place. When a boy applies for admission to a public 
school, he Is entered not only on the roll of the school 
to receive Instruction, but he is allotted to a house for 
residence; his parents will be quite as anxious about 
the character of the house master and the reputation 
of his house as they are about the instruction Imparted 
In school hours. For the house Is a community within 
itself; it Is the permanent home for several years of 
some fifty active spirits whose life Is largely self- 
directed, although strictly controlled by custom and 
tradition. Just as the day-school boy in the city leads 
a double life, partly at lessons with teachers and class- 
mates, partly at home with parents and friends of the 
home circle, so the public-school boy has his "house" 



264 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

friends, with whom he takes his meals and spends his 
leisure hours. His house master leads the same di- 
vided life : in school hours he is a class teacher ; in his 
house he is also a teacher, but in a different sense, for 
he stands in loco parentis, as the saying is, to all the 
flock who sleep and feed under his roof. This double 
sphere of work is not of course assigned to all the 
masters, since a much larger staff is required for teach- 
ing than for domestic supervision. 

When a young man first comes from Oxford and 
Cambridge to teach at a public school he has no con- 
nection with a house, unless in a subordinate capacity 
to help an overworked house master; he must wait 
his turn and only after a number of years' work, when 
he has settled down to the service of the school, can he 
expect to be invited by the head master to occupy one 
of these coveted posts. Incidentally we may here note 
that many public-school masters remain at the school 
of their choice for life, or at any rate a great number 
of years, much in contrast to what prevails in Ameri- 
can high schools. The emoluments are such as to pro- 
cure the service of men of ability, willing to give their 
best powers to an institution whose stability and effi- 
ciency afford a worthy sphere of usefulness, although 
it cuts them off to a large extent from a wider interest 
in national affairs. Stanley's account of the motives 
which governed Arnold in his selection of assistants at 
Rugby throws a clear light on the importance attached 
to these considerations. 

Communities of Adolescents. — We may now leave 
the external arrangements and endeavor to ascertain 
the inner principles which have made communities of 



THE ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOL 265 

this type so effective. The outstanding feature is to 
be sought in the age of the scholars — they are ado- 
lescents; few enter these schools before the fourteenth 
birthday or leave before the age of seventeen ; a con- 
siderable number stay till they are nineteen. In Ar- 
nold's day many boys were sent to these schools at 
the age of twelve or even younger; but as numbers 
increased, it became customary to raise the age of en- 
trance, and thirteen is now regarded as quite young 
enough. To meet the needs of younger boys another 
type of school, the preparatory school, has found favor. 
There are at least three hundred schools, most of them 
the private property of their founders, each receiving 
from twenty to one hundred little boys betv/een the 
ages of nine and thirteen, to be expressly "prepared" 
to enter one of these public schools thereafter. It 
would take us beyond the limits of these chapters to 
enlarge upon this field of education, but it is important 
to notice how closely knit is the provision which the 
wealthier classes of England maintain for a complete 
scheme of schooling. The little boy attends a prepara- 
tory school exclusively designed to fit him for a public 
school : and if at the public school his career indicates 
that he should proceed to college at the age of eighteen 
or nineteen he will almost certainly be sent to Oxford 
or Cambridge, the two ancient universities which are 
thus linked by very close ties to the schools which sup- 
ply them with students and for which, in turn, they 
equip the schoolmasters. 

The public school, then, is a community of ado- 
lescents, of youth, well born, with great physical vigor, 
free from the anxieties of wage-earning youth in hum- 



266 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

ble circumstances ; ready for the discipline which cus- 
tom and tradition impose, and equally ready to claim a 
measure of independence in the stir of social activity 
which a large and homogeneous community affords. 
The public-school master is no psychologist — on the 
contrary, he commonly displays a hearty contempt for 
pedagogic research — but he serves a community which 
displays at every turn those qualities of youth por- 
trayed for us in recent years by Stanley Hall and other 
writers. 

As Arnold had observed, even before he went to 
Rugby, lads of this age display a temperament anal- 
ogous to that of the "childhood of the human race." 
"A low standard of morals must be tolerated among 
them" for "they are not susceptible of Christian prin- 
ciples in their full development." Their emotional 
response leads the young at this period to an intense 
delight in comradeship : they are hero-worshipers, 
firm friends of their party, stout foes of their enemies. 
As the months and years pass by from fourteen to 
eighteen a public-school boy usually acquires a pas- 
sionate devotion for his house, or for the leaders of his 
community. To display these emotions is not "good 
form"; his outward behavior is commonly curbed by 
that self-controlled demeanor which is characteristic 
of the Anglo-Saxon race the world over; but in his 
inner life he is the prey of sentiment, and the re- 
pression induced by his social environment merely 
serves to brace the character to more strenuous vigor 
in action. 

Social Groupings. — The school is so organized as 
to give yetit for social action in many directions, and 



THE ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOL 267 

the community divides itself for social purposes into 
three clearly marked groups : 

(a) When a boy first arrives as a youngster, he has 
to acknowledge his inferiority, as a "fag," and al- 
though the duties of a fag to his seniors are nowadays 
very light, the line of division between junior and 
elder is rigidly maintained ; and maintained not merely 
by the ancient custom, but by the willingness of both 
parties, the one to bear rule, the other to follow a 
leader and obey. 

(b) During this year or two of service as a fag, 
the growing youth makes progress both in his "form" 
(i. e., class division) at lessons and in his house at 
games. He then spends another year or two in the 
middle group of the school, not yet entrusted with 
authority as a prefect or member of the "sixth form," 
but exempt from the menial duties that fall to the lot 
of the fags. 

(c) Finally he emerges to a position of responsibil- 
ity. His studies have carried him to "the sixth," the 
highest class in lessons; his physical growth enables 
him to be a leader in games, and his social experience 
fits him to take on the burden of responsibilities for 
the common welfare. 

Such in brief is the life history of a successful pub- 
lic-school boy from the dawn of youth to his ripening 
years — an experience which tests both physical prowess 
and intellectual effort, which by the strain of competi- 
tion weeds out the weaker sort, and, by its insistence 
on high social standards, gives a unique power and 
status to the older scholars who rise to the top in their 
community. 



268 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

"Fags" and "Prepostors." — It must not be sup- 
posed that these three groups — ^the youngest, called 
"fags," the middle part of the school, and the "sixth 
form/' or "prepostors," — were artificially contrived by 
Arnold and others. Rather, they are natural divisions 
which any large society of adolescents, thrown to- 
gether for a long period apart from home, will ex- 
hibit. The act of creating this type of society, of 
bringing youths together at school, itself originates a 
social situation with these three distinct groups. The 
teacher, therefore, has only two remedies : either he 
himself and his few colleagues must attempt to govern 
every detail of the school life, refusing to recognize the 
natural authority of the older scholars and the nat- 
ural submissiveness of the younger, or he must reg- 
ulate and systematize the grouping, giving legal power 
to those whose position warrants them in its exercise. 
This second remedy was the one adopted by the Eng- 
lish public school, in sharp contrast to the French 
Lycce or the German Gymnasium. 

The "Sixth Form." — Let us dwell a moment longer 
on the position of the older scholars, for all who have 
worked in public schools agree that they are the pivot 
on which the well-being of the corporate body turns. 
Arnold describes the thirty who composed his "sixth 
form" as follows : "Those who, having risen to the 
highest form of the school, will probably be at once 
the oldest, and the strongest, and the cleverest ; and if 
the school be well ordered, the most respectable in 
application and general character," and as regards their 
authority in fagging, "the power given by the supreme 
authorities of the school to the 'sixth form,' to be 



THE ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOL 269 

exercised by them over the lower boys, for the sake of 
securing a regular government among the boys them- 
selves, and avoiding the evils of anarchy, in other 
words, of the lawless tyranny of physical strength." 
We may regard this organization as a treatment of 
youth according to the despotic control which suits a 
barbarian age. Democratic government is only pos- 
sible among a "free" people, i. e., an adult population 
who have reached a stage of moral freedom. A society 
of adolescents is in this sense not "free"; its members 
are prepared for adult life not so much by discussing 
the principles of citizenship as by experiencing a social 
life where subjection to strong rule, and the exercise 
of unquestioned authority, each play their part. 

The Rule of Absolutism. — The entire organization 
of public-school life bears the impress of this concep- 
tion. The head master is an uncrowned king: once 
appointed by the laymen who compose the governing 
body, he rules without question. He selects the entire 
staff of assistants and, if he wishes, he can dismiss 
them. He alone admits the scholars ; he has the final 
voice in the curriculum ; he is captain of the ship from 
start to finish. The only escape from the possible abuse 
of such extensive powers is the right of the governing 
body to dismiss him. Indirectly, of course, the custom 
and tradition of the school serve as a check: a wise 
man does not fight against the stars. But so far no 
criticism (and criticism has seldom been lacking) has 
modified the position of these rulers : it rests, from the 
standpoint of psychology, on the belief that a despot is 
required to control a society of "barbarians." 

For, below the head master, each assistant, each 



270 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

house master, In his rank and office, is a despot, too. 
In spite of his autocratic power, a head master rarely 
ventures to intrude on a class room to listen to a les- 
son ; nor would he enter any "house" but his own for 
the purpose of inspection. Even the youngest master, 
coming raw and untrained from an Oxford or Cam- 
bridge college, will stand on his own feet and discharge 
his office without interference. It is easy therefore to 
picture how natural it becomes in such an atmosphere 
to relegate to "the oldest, the strongest, and the 
cleverest" among the pupils much of the minor author- 
ity which, under other conditions, would fall to the lot 
of teachers. 

Primus Inter Pares.- — But the reader must not sup- 
pose that this theory of autocracy involves a separa- 
tion of the various ranks of officers in watertight com- 
partments. If the subjects in this despotism were 
really "barbarians" no doubt success of a sort could 
be attained by the sheer force of authority, but they 
are in a transition stage between childhood and man- 
hood; their intelligence and sympathies alike demand 
an active exchange and close cooperation between 
master and subject. Hence it is everywhere observed 
that the head master lives intensely in his school : he 
does not make outward show of his affection, but he 
gives his life, in comradeship with his colleagues and 
with his pupils, to the community. And the confidence 
which a great head master displays in his colleagues is 
not that of a secluded monarch who leaves the cares of 
a commonwealth to a cabinet, but of a friend, primus 
inter pares; and the relations of the staff with the pre- 



THE ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOL 271 

posters is of a like kind, giving and receiving the con- 
fidence of friends. 

Such was, and is, the character of public-school life 
at its best : it would be easy to show how grave are the 
misfortunes where the best is not attained; to this 
darker side of the picture we shall revert below. 



CHAPTER III 

THE CURRICULUM IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

OUR sketch of the public schools would be in- 
adequate if we neglected to consider the manner 
in which they discharge their office in teaching. For 
the public-school master is usually a competent scholar 
in the chief subjects of instruction which fall to his 
lot; he has been an "honors man" at his university; 
and it is sometimes the case (as indeed happened in 
the case of Arnold himself) that a teacher of public- 
school boys returns in middle life to his old university 
as a lecturer or professor. Nor is it to be supposed 
that a succession of able men, paid sufficiently well to 
keep them in the permanent service of a great institu- 
tion, would be so engrossed in the social duties of their 
position as to despise the daily task of instruction. 
Even if on other grounds such a neglect was to be ap- 
prehended, the stimulus of competition — ^that great 
nineteenth-century weapon of progress — has always 
been at hand to keep the schoolmaster up to the mark. 
It will be readily understood that a boarding-school 
is very sensitive to the effects of competition. The day 
school in a city can rely upon an adequate attendance 
of scholars, unless the city declines in population and 
wealth ; but the boarding-school must rely upon its 
reputation, and it will sufifer from the rivalry of com- 

272 



THE ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOL 273 

petitors if it can not "deliver the goods." A striking 
example was afforded in the fortunes of Harrow 
School : in 1845 the total attendance was sixty-nine, 
although in the thirties there were more than three 
hundred ; when the great Doctor Vaughan resigned in 
1860, the numbers stood at four hundred and sixty- 
nine ; now over six hundred is the total. 

Motives for Admitting New Studies. — We have 
seen that nearly all the public schools rely mainly upon 
boarders, except in London. Here we find St. Paul's 
and Merchant Taylors, of old foundation. Also the 
City of London School, King's College School, and 
University College School, all of nineteenth-century 
foundation, may be ranked among public schools. Each 
of these, no doubt, can look for a steady flow of pupils 
from the immense area which surrounds them, and yet 
they compete with one another as well as with boarding- 
schools in the country. They depend largely upon fees 
for their prosperity, and hence the motives to maintain 
reputation are quite as effective with them as with their 
rivals. Now, the effect of this competition is to com- 
pel the schools to admit new studies side by side with 
the traditional curriculum of classics and mathematics. 
To put the matter in terms familiar to American read- 
ers : these schools have been compelled to recognize 
the claims of an elective system and of vocational 
training as opposed to older theories of general or lib- 
eral education. We must note therefore the directions 
in which "vocation" exerts its influence. First of all 
they are linked intimately with our two ancient uni- 
versities : their choicest pupils compete for scholarships 
offered by Oxford and Cambridge colleges; secondly, 



274 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

a large number look forward to careers in the army 
and are prepared for the entrance examinations to 
Sandhurst or Woolwich; thirdly, an increasing num- 
ber during the last thirty years expect to enter on 
careers in manufacture or commerce without proceed- 
ing to a university at all, and provision has had to be 
made for these. 

As regards the navy, a word of explanation may be 
in place. It might be thought that a career so essential 
to the welfare of England would be closely linked 
with the public-school system, and in earlier days this 
was the case. But the naval officer now requires a vo- 
cational training of quite a rigid type : he needs at an 
early age to learn both the discipline and the science 
of his career. Hence the admiralty now requires boys 
to enter upon special training at two great naval col- 
leges before fourteen years of age ; and greatly to the 
chagrin of many public-school teachers the severance 
is now almost complete. 

The Influence of Oxford and Cambridge. — Higher 
education in England has been largely controlled by 
two peculiar features : firstly, the scholarship system ; 
secondly, the "honors" system. Every college in Ox- 
ford and Cambridge possesses large endowments from 
which funds are forthcoming to pay the fees, and 
sometimes also to provide maintenance. These are ad- 
vertised year by year and each college (or a group of 
colleges in association) conducts a competitive exam- 
ination; any number from twenty to fifty candidates 
will journey from their school to write answers to 
these papers (sometimes also to answer questions in 
an oral examination) and the best, from three to ten 



THE ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOL 275 

or twenty, will be chosen. These will henceforth, for 
three or four years, be "scholars of the college," with 
a rank of their own (usually sitting at a separate table 
in the dining hall), the picked men, as far as learning 
is concerned, in their society. 

The system of "honors schools" works in with the 
scholarship system, although there is no official connec- 
tion between the two. The bachelor's degree can be 
secured either by showing moderate attainments in a 
variety of studies leading to a "pass" degree, or by 
specializing in a single branch of learning such as 
classics, mathematics, or modern history, and taking 
"honors" of a first, second or third class in this branch. 
The man who wishes to leave the university with a 
creditable record in study will obviously select one of 
the honors schools, and his college will expect him to 
do so. Hence, while membership in an honors school is 
not confined to men to whom a college has awarded 
a scholarship, the great majority of "honors men" are 
scholars of colleges and have been carefully prepared 
at school to compete for a scholarship with the ambi- 
tion ultimately of a good first class in honors. This 
record stamps the scholar as a man of high intellec- 
tual ability : it is a standard widely understood and ap- 
preciated. No wonder then that the public schools, 
closely linked both in social and cultural interests with 
these two universities, should make it one of their chief 
duties to organize their teaching with this competitive 
purpose in mind. 

It must not, however, be supposed that only those 
who can win scholarships proceed to Oxford and Cam- 
bridge. There are quite a number who, either from 



276 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

lack of ability or lack of stimulus, are not concerned 
to compete, but are sent to the university (as so many 
thousands are sent in America), because it affords the 
most congenial life for a young man in the later years 
of adolescence. These will sometimes enter an honors 
school, but they are often content to "read" for a "pass" 
degree ; and if they fail to secure a degree, sometimes 
the failure will not trouble either themselves or their 
parents, since their interests lie in the athletic or social 
life of their college and university rather than in the 
pursuit of learning. The public school is concerned to 
give due attention to these less strenuous souls, since 
they must attain a moderate degree of efficiency in 
Latin, Greek and mathematics in order to be matricu- 
lated at their university. 

Extension of the Scholarship System. — When the 
scholarship system first took regular shape, in the first 
half of the nineteenth century, the only serious com- 
petitors for these valuable prizes were the public 
schools ; there were no other secondary schools of any 
account. But the difi'usion of secondary education has 
widened immensely the area of competition : and as no 
favor is shown in scholarship examinations to a boy 
coming from a school of known repute, it has become 
the ambition of many secondary schools to send up a 
boy of rare ability to secure one of these coveted prizes. 
Thus the standard has risen, selection has become more 
pronounced, and to hold their own against these com- 
petitors the public schools have been compelled to put 
forth all their energy. Originally the scholarships 
were confined to distinction in classics and math- 
ematics ; at Oxford mathematics has always held an in- 



THE ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOL 277 

ferior position, but at Cambridge a fair balance has been 
maintained between the two. Gradually the innovators 
secured a place for novel branches of learning : on the 
one hand the natural sciences asserted their claim ; lab- 
oratories were erected ; "honors schools" of natural 
science gained a footing and most of the colleges now 
offer one or two scholarships in these subjects; some 
do much more than that, especially where the influence 
of the medical profession has been felt. On the other 
hand, the wider scope of humanistic study has been 
admitted, especially in the field of history; boys who 
show at school a special interest in history or literature 
can now find scholarships suited to their taste, leading 
up to an appropriate honors school. Lastly, modern 
languages have been admitted to similar privileges ; but 
it must be borne in mind that while Latin and Greek 
have had to share their monopoly with modern rivals, 
they still maintain their predominance both in the affec- 
tion of their students and in reputation. 

The Dominant Type of Teaching. — It is now easy 
to realize the dominant type of teaching in a public 
school. By the time a boy is sixteen it is pretty clearly 
determined in what field he is likely to make his mark. 
He will not at so early an age become exclusively a stu- 
dent in this chosen field, but the distinction (to adopt 
American nomenclature) between his "major" and his 
"minor" subjects will be quite pronounced. If he is 
designed for classical studies, he will drop his lessons 
in natural science ; he will only carry on his math- 
ematics so far as will insure success in the elementary 
requirements; he will probably continue his attention 
to English literature and history, but his maximum ef- 



278 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

fort will be spent on ancient history and literature, on 
diligent translation and detailed study of classical au- 
thors and on composition in both Latin and Greek, in- 
cluding verse composition at least in Latin. By the 
time he is eighteen he is ready to journey to Oxford 
or Cambridge and try his hand at a scholarship ; if he 
fails at one college or group of colleges he will try at 
another, for the regulations usually exclude candidates 
who are over nineteen years of age. 

Now if, as in the old days, these scholarships were 
limited to classics and mathematics, the organization 
of a public-school curriculum would be a simple affair ; 
but with the addition of natural science, modern his- 
tory and modern languages as possible "electives" the 
problem has become increasingly complex. In each of 
these branches the school requires one or more highly 
skilled teachers conversant not only with the ordinary 
scope of their subject, but with its latest development, 
since the scholarship examination will reflect the ad- 
vancing currents of treatment which sway the teachers 
in Oxford and Cambridge who set the papers. And 
they must be skilled in individual teaching, knowing 
how to get the most out of a boy, holding the balance 
between mere cramming with information and the more 
subtle form of preparation by means of self-reliance 
and wide grasp. Flence, if you visit the class rooms of 
a large public school, you will find the "sixth form" 
embracing a large variety of subjects. All will be 
giving some attention to the humanities, i. e., to scrip- 
ture literature and languages, but a few will be spend- 
ing the bulk of their timxc in the laboratories, another 
few working with a history or mathematics tutor, while 



THE ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOL 279 

more will be at work, as in the old days, on Latin and 
Greek. 

Difference Between English and Prussian Sys- 
tems. — It will be seen that this arrangement is in sharp 
contrast with the continental system originally planned 
by Prussia. There the state, as soon as it realized the 
need for alternatives to the "philologisches" system of 
the gymnasium, sought for diversity of curriculum by 
establishing new types of schools — Real Schule, Real 
Gymnasium and so forth. If the English public schools 
had been controlled by a government a similar plan 
might have been enforced, but since each school de- 
termined its own destiny, it was not likely that any one 
of them would surrender its claim to provide for new 
electives when the demand for these came to hand in 
the form of university scholarships. 

And the same mode of organization has been fol- 
lowed in the younger ages. Each school differs from 
its neighbor in details, but the general scheme is the 
same. What is known in America as a "class" or a 
"year" is here called a "form," and there are four such 
grades* : third, fourth, fifth and sixth forms, the sixth 
being the most advanced. This looks as if a four-year 
course were provided such as we have in the American 
high school, but that would be a misconception. The 
idea of a settled course of so many years is too rigid 
for these schools ; the third forms include the begin- 
ners, the sixth the most advanced, and fourths and 



* The nomenclature is, however, not uniform. Thus Rugby 
School has a variety of sixth and fifth forms (called col- 
lectively the upper school), but below that range the forms 
are called "middles" — upper middle, lower middle, etc. 



^80 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

fifths come between. As more divisions are wanted 
an upper third is estabHshed or a lower third, and upper 
fifth, upper fourth, lower fourth, etc. ; each school in 
course of time has established its own plan of classi- 
fication and nomenclature. 

With such an elastic organization it was compara- 
tively easy to make allowance for "electives" when the 
intrusion of modern ideas compelled a school to give 
liberty for a Real Schule curriculum ; classes were es- 
tablished called modern six, modern five, perhaps even 
modern four and modern three, and, if these classes 
grew in popularity with parents, an upper modern 
four or the like would be added. In some schools 
a modern three or modern four would not be per- 
mitted, since the authorities would hold that a general 
scheme of classical studies was best for every one ; boys 
in such a school would only be permitted to abandon 
Latin and Greek when they attained to a fifth-form 
rank. But almost everywhere now it is possible for a 
boy to enter and go right through a public school with- 
out Greek; such boys pursue German in addition to 
French. 

Illustration of Curriculum and Organization. — ^As 
an illustration of these plans, the following may be 
cited from the Rughy School Lists (Summer Term, 
1914) : "Divisions of the school : The classical side — • 
On the classical side the form subjects are Latin, 
Greek, and English literature and history. The re- 
maining hours (about one-third of the total) are 
devoted in the Sixth Form and Upper School, to math- 
ematics and either natural science or modern lan- 
guages; in the Middle and Lower Schools, to math- 



THE ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOL 281 

ematics, French and natural science. Specialists — Boys 
who have reached the upper school (classical side) 
and have shown promise in mathematics, or natural 
science, can specialize if the head master approves, so 
as to devote the greater part of their time to either 
of these branches of study. Boys who have to pass 
matriculation or other special examinations can 
usually have their work arranged according to their 
requirements. The modern side — On the modern side 
the form subjects are Latin, French and English lit- 
erature and history. Of the remaining hours in the 
Upper School, about one-half of the total hours are 
devoted to German, mathematics and natural science; 
in the Middle and Loiver Schools, of the total hours 
about one-quarter is devoted to mathematics and nat- 
ural science. The army class — In the army class at- 
tention is concentrated on the subjects specially re- 
quired for admission to Woolwich and Sandhurst." 
Lists such as this are put together at the beginning 
of every term in each of the public schools and serve 
to show how complicated the organization has becom.e 
in modern times. In the Rugby list each boy finds his 
name printed in a "form"; his name will not appear 
in its alphabetical place, but in order of merit, accord- 
ing to the marks he gained in class work and in paper 
examination conducted at the close of the term. If he 
or others who were in a certain form (say upper middle 
I classical) during the previous term have done well 
in these tests they may be promoted, and their names 
will appear in lower fifth classical this term (or in 
lower fifth modern if it is decided that they shall now 
specialize in a modern curriculum). The most nu- 



282 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

merous changes are made in the summer, because all 
who proceed to the universities leave at this period; 
but readjustments and promotions are made at the end 
of each term, three times in the year, not only because 
new pupils arrive, but far more because the stimulus 
of examination and promotion is relied upon as an in- 
dispensable incentive to industry. The Rugby School 
List mentioned above occupies twenty pages, each 
headed with the name of its form master, and is fol- 
lowed by thirty pages allotted to "sets": every boy 
will find his name repeated in a mathematics "set" (1, 
2, 3, 4, etc.) with a grouping distinct from his form, 
and a modern language "set," unless his specialization 
has enabled him to give up one or more of these 
studies. 

A visitor accustomed to the simplicity of English 
elementary school "Standards" or American high 
school "Years," or German Gymnasien "Klassen" finds 
the system bewildering, but masters and boys soon 
get used to it. It may be questioned, however, whether 
the average boy does not suffer from the variety of 
teachers and classes which claim his attention: the 
clever boy rapidly passes through lower forms and 
sets, and secures a position where he can specialize, 
receiving the careful oversight of two or three teach- 
ers; but the average boy, going at a slower pace, 
often makes but little progress, especially in the sub- 
sidiary studies taught in sets. It is difficult, however, 
to see how this drawback could be surmounted; the 
system of classification in sets was in fact a reform, 
adopted in order to secure specialist teaching and 
classification for the newer branches of study; and 



THE ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOL 283 

with various modifications it has been imitated in most 
secondary schools. It is the English method of attain- 
ing the results sought in American high schools by the 
system of electives. 

The Fine Arts and Handicrafts. — It will be readily 
inferred that the movement in American education 
leading to the establishment of manual-training high 
schools and other types of secondary education which 
foster the arts and crafts, has no counterpart in the 
English public school ; for the theory which in the main 
determines their curriculum assumes that a "discipline" 
in languages and humanistic pursuits, assisted by 
mathematics and science, is the best foundation — at 
least up to sixteen — for a career either in the indus- 
trial world or in the various realms of fine art. Never- 
theless it would be misleading to assume that these 
interests have been wholly ignored. 

Music. — Since most of these institutions are board- 
ing-schools, and are closely associated either with the 
Established Church or with some other denomination, 
the first reason for cultivating singing is to assist in 
the services of the school chapel. A voluntary choir 
of masters and boys leads the congregation, and spends 
much time in the careful practise of church music : the 
chief music-master of the school is the organist and 
choir conductor. Apart from this the music-masters 
will not teach singing in classes, but will be engaged in 
giving private lessons out of school hours to boys who 
cultivate the piano, violin or organ ; often a school or- 
chestra will be set on foot and concerts given. Music, 
in short, plays the same part that it does in any active 
society of students in America. 



284 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

And because song is so distinctively an expression 
of corporate feeling it is not surprising that these in- 
stitutions should at times display a keen interest in 
popular singing; while only a few members of the so- 
ciety, with special interest in music, join the chapel 
choir or learn an instrument, all are expected to re- 
spond to the appeal of school songs. The present 
writer, from his own experience, does not believe that 
boys from fourteen to eighteen, after the voice has 
broken, are so adapted to respond actively to this ap- 
peal as at other periods of life, but they like to hear 
singing and to feel that they are taking some share. 
Hence when a teacher of real gifts, such as the famous 
John Farmer of Harrow, joins a public-school staff, 
the infection of musical enthusiasm soon spreads. At 
Harrow in the nineties, E. E. Bowen wrote the songs 
and Farmer put them to music; some of these, both 
words and music, have extended their influence far 
beyond the bounds of Harrow. But little attempt is 
made at formal teaching of such songs; the natural 
place for enjoying them is in the "house" where 
leisure time is spent, and where the most direct display 
of corporate sentiment is witnessed. 

Drawing and Painting. — No public school is with- 
out some equipment for these arts ; and usually an ex- 
cellent art room is built, vv^here the few who show 
special talent and have time allotted for the purpose 
can do individual work under the art master. Apart 
from such isolated requirements the younger boys will 
usually take one or at most two class lessons a week 
in drawing; and boys preparing for entrance to the 
army, or for any other examination where drawing is 



THE ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOL 285 

obligatory, will be organized in drawing classes as re- 
quired. 

Handicrafts. — In the same way all these schools 
will be equipped with a good workshop, which will be 
frequented by a few boys who have cultivated at home 
a special interest in tools, and find time to pursue 
handicraft in wood or metal as a hobby outside of 
school hours. One or two schools have gone further 
and are putting "manual training" — for younger boys 
— on the same level as drawing. The following an- 
nouncement from Rugby will explain itself : 

"Manual training: From the beginning of the ad- 
vent term, 1914, all boys in or below the third upper 
middle will receive instruction in m.anual work during 
school hours. The time allotted to this subject will 
be one and one-half hours per week, and the govern- 
ing body has authorized a workshops fee of ten shil- 
lings per term, which will be charged to all boys in 
those forms. The instruction will be given by a car- 
penter and a mechanic, each of whom has had long 
experience and is expert in his trade, and the scheme 

is under the general direction of Mr. . Boys 

will be allowed, with their parents' consent, to select 
for themselves the articles they propose to make, pro- 
vided that the nature of the work is considered suit- 
able to their ability. These boys will be charged cost 
price for the materials which they use. Boys who do 
not wish, or are not sufficiently skilful, to make things 
for themselves, will be provided with suitable work. 
In this case they will not be charged for materials, 
and the finished product will be the property of the 
school. Tools, aprons and overalls will be provided 
by the school. (July, 1914.)" 

Abbotsholme and Bedales. — It will be generally 



286 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

agreed that nowhere in the civilized world have the 
fine arts and handicrafts come to an understanding 
with secondary education. Modern art pursues its own 
course, greatly influenced by wider and deeper currents 
of social change, but seldom seeking to regulate the 
schooling of youth in place of general education ; what 
influence it exerts is mainly in the sphere of primary 
schooling. The artist seeks to establish his own art 
"school" and his pupils seldom come to him before 
seventeen years of age ; thus the years thirteen to sev- 
enteen claim little regard, at least so far as boys are 
concerned. It is only in pioneer institutions with an 
avowedly "reforming" purpose that efforts in this di- 
rection can be observed, and these excite little interest 
among artists themselves. Among such in England 
two may be mentioned as making a fair claim to be 
ranked among public schools — Abbotsholme in Derby- 
shire and Bedales in Sussex. The fame of Abbots- 
holme has been spread abroad as well as in England 
by the genius (very remarkable if somewhat eccentric) 
of the founder. Doctor Cecil Reddie. In the attention 
paid at Abbotsholme to music and other fine arts we 
have an example of the dissatisfaction felt in many 
quarters with the traditional curriculum of orthodox 
public schools; equally remarkable is the effort to 
bring the boys into relation with social service, by the 
methods employed to make handicrafts, both in the 
workshop and on the farm. 

Bedales is not so revolutionary in its curriculum, but 
it expresses the modern tendency in another direction 
since it is co-educational; this school (to which St. 
George's, Harpenden, a more recent foundation, should 



THE ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOL 287 

perhaps be added) supplies the only example of a pub- 
lic school which follows the American pattern as re- 
gards the association of boys and girls during the 
adolescent period. There are many secondary day 
schools in sparsely populated areas which educate the 
sexes together, but while the two here mentioned main- 
tain their reputation, there is little evidence that they 
will find imitators. The educational pioneer in Europe 
has, necessarily, a more difficult task than in America : 
custom and social usage are more fixed ; even parents 
who in their own modes of thought may be "progres- 
sive" are seldom willing to let their sons or daughters, 
in these critical years, be subjected to experiment. 
Thus larger reforms, whether in the curriculum or in 
the deeper issues underlying morals and society, are 
slow to develop ; the Englishman's view about his chil- 
dren is "conservative"; he thinks that on the whole 
they will do best to conform during youth to the "tra- 
dition of the elders," although he foresees that in days 
to come they may discard tradition and venture on 
paths of their own choosing. 

Hence we should not anticipate any rapid change in 
the public-school curriculum; change will only come 
as a consequence of changed relations to art and life 
in the philosophy of a new generation. 

REFERENCES 

The essays on various subjects of the curriculum contained 
in Higher Education in England and The Public Schools from 
Within, mentioned ii;i the preceding chapter, may be consulted. 



CHAPTER IV 

RELATION OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL TO ENGLISH LIFE 

HAVE sought in the preceding chapters to dis- 
play the distinctive features of the pubhc-school 
communities as based partly upon tradition and pe- 
culiar elements in English history, and partly upon 
universal traits in the disposition of the adolescent. I 
wish to follow up these two points to wider issues, for 
my special purpose in writing these chapters is not 
merely to sketch the outlines of a peculiar educational 
system, but to show the system in its setting, on the 
one hand contributing to a nation's development, on 
the other hand as related to world-wide movements 
in education. 

Public-School Men in Public Life.— First, then, 
let us inquire what the public schools have done for 
England. We can answer that question by looking to 
the fields of public activity which the alumni of the 
schools have occupied. 

In affairs of religion, the Church of England, the 
historic "Established" communion, has recruited a 
large number of clergy from this quarter, while the 
non-conformist communities, Methodist, Congrega- 
tionalist, and the like, have only small connection with 
this grade of society. As regards the scholastic pro- 
fession, as we have seen, there has prevailed a uniform 
interbreeding between these schools and the two an- 

288 



THE ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOL 289 

cient universities. In the great professions of law and 
medicine, the bond is not so close; but it may be 
roughly said that the great majority of barristers will 
have been educated at a public school, while the reverse 
is the case with solicitors ; for the barrister makes his 
headquarters in London ; his training and interests are 
national rather than provincial. A medical man who 
practises in high social circles finds it to his advantage 
to have been educated in the exclusive social atmos- 
phere of these schools, but medical training itself is 
not under the segis of Oxford and Cambridge; the 
London hospitals and provincial universities train 
thousands of medical students who owe nothing to the 
public schools. 

Relation to Trade and Manufacture. — The same is 
true of commerce and manufacture. Wealthy families, 
as we saw, commonly send their sons to a public school, 
and a fair number of these come home after finishing 
with schools to share in the father's business. But 
trade and manufacture owe no debt to this type of 
education. The great bulk of the men who have cre- 
ated English industries are self-made men, risen from 
the ranks : Lever, of Sunlight Soap ; and Lipton, 
grocer and yachtsman, are typical of their class. The 
sons and grandsons of these men are able, no doubt, 
to carry on the affairs of a large commercial house 
with integrity and industry, but the exclusive cloistered 
life of a public school gives them no special advantage 
in the rough and tumble of the commercial world. 
Nor do we often find public-school men taking a lead- 
ing part in civic life, as aldermen, city councilor, or 
the like. On the contrary, it is confessed that the ef- 



290 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

feet of segregating lads during their adolescent years 
from the actual environment of the cities where their 
home lies, fosters a contempt for what seems to them a 
petty and mean sphere. 

The great English and Scottish cities during the 
last twenty years have witnessed quite remarkable de- 
velopments in organization — Glasgow, Birmingham, 
Liverpool, afford examples of municipal enterprise, of 
which Manchester was perhaps the forerunner; and 
these great fields of public service have brought to 
the front a host of men of first-rate ability. Joseph 
Chamberlain was a typical example in the last thirty 
years of the nineteenth century. But very rarely, ex- 
cept in London, have men bred in a public-school at- 
mosphere played a part in municipal advancement. 
Within the last two years an organized effort has been 
set on foot to redress the balance. During the month 
of November, 1913, meetings of "public-school" men 
were held in many of the largest cities to urge upon 
them the claims of social and civic service. If this 
duty had been fulfilled in the past, such a special ap- 
peal would not have been required. 

The Public Schools and Political Life. — We must, 
therefore, look elsewhere to find the political and so- 
cial role in life for which public-school training has 
been the natural preparation. If we contrast the Eng- 
land of 1810 when Arnold was a boy at Winchester 
with the England of to-day, we see an immense change 
in the relations of Britain toward the entire globe. It 
is true that England even in the eighteenth century 
was master of an empire; already the "white man's 
burden" in India, in Africa, and a hundred smaller 



THE ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOL 291 

colonies, had been shouldered, but it was reserved for 
the nineteenth century to discharge this colossal task 
to the full. The claims alike of war and of peaceful 
rule have drained the mother country year by year of 
thousands of her strongest and her ablest young men ; 
and for this service the public school has provided the 
leaders as well as many of the rank and file. The de- 
scription we have given of public-school life shows 
readily the relation of cause and effect. Take a boy 
away at an early age from home and city, plunge him 
into a society where discipline, strong control, oppor- 
tunities for leadership abound, and you destine him 
without fail to seek a sphere where the masterful qual- 
ities of rule over inferiors, of energetic social influ- 
ence, will be in place. Imperial affairs with all their 
brilliant prospects of adventure capture his imagina- 
tion; he enters the army as an officer, and ere long 
goes with his regiment to the West Indies or the China 
seas; he enters the Indian civil service and in a year 
or two, as a collector, is governing the destinies of 
thousands of natives. 

It must be remembered, too, that the roving instinct 
is in the Englishman's blood — or, rather, one should 
say that it is a survival of age-long instincts of the 
Anglo-Saxon race. The farmer in Dakota who traces 
back his ancestry through Ohio or Illinois to the 
Yankees of New England and beyond them to an Eng- 
lish village, is own brother to the prepostor of a public 
school who, without a sigh, quits the paternal roof 
and takes up a sheep-run in Australia or learns to 
govern colored men in Africa or the Pacific. The 
point is that the English public school, by its unique 



292 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

social order, all unwittingly bred a type of man who 
was wanted throughout the British Empire to discharge 
such service. When a visitor to Clifton or Wellington 
or Winchester examines the roll of honor of their 
alumni he finds a record not only of men of renown 
in the field of domestic politics, but of hundreds and 
thousands who have played their part, displaying the 
public-school spirit all over the globe. 

And there are not a few bred in these schools who 
have no place on the roll of honor but have found in 
foreign fields a refuge if not a sphere of public duty. 
The "remittance man" is a well-known character in 
English novels and he is not merely a figment of the 
novelist. The weakling at school whose character 
fails to stand the test of its strenuous life, often fails 
to meet the sterner demands of social duty afterward; 
the kindest penalty which his friends can impose is 
to send him as an emigrant to the frontiers of the em- 
pire, where, if anywhere, he may recover self-control, 
and recall, in a novel environment, those lessons of 
self -discipline which he had rejected at his public 
school. 

The Public Schools and the Ruling Caste. — Thus 
both in its failure and its success the fortunes of the 
public school have been intimately associated with the 
empire, which grew so portentously, in sunshine and in 
shadow, during the nineteenth century. The growth 
of imperial responsibility demanded a constant suc- 
cession of men, ready to cut loose from home ties, 
quick to undertake and execute affairs of government, 
with the instincts of a ruling caste; and here were a 



THE ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOL 293 

group of schools nursing the stock whence such men 
could be selected. 

I think it may be claimed, without undue conceit, 
that this great task has been worthily performed. It 
is not a little for these schools to boast of when they 
point to English rule in Egypt and India, and in many 
a smaller colony. Doubtless the story here and there 
is stained with records of tyranny and crime, but 
when we compare the success of England with the fail- 
ure in similar situations of her continental neighbors 
and seek cause for the effect, we can fairly claim that 
the specific social training of the public school, un- 
known to other European nations, provided the specific 
qualities in habit and moral character which have en- 
abled the Englishman to rule inferior races both with 
firmness and with sympathy. His youthful life at 
school was a great social adventure, with the storm 
and stress of conquest and submission, learning to 
give and take both from those beneath him and those 
above him ; now out in the empire, apart from his fel- 
lows, these social habits are tested. The "moral 
thoughtfulness" which, in Arnold's classic phrase, was 
the ideal of his school life, has to guide him as a 
lieutenant in a sepoy regiment, as a ruler and judge 
of alien races, as teacher and guide to men who only 
know Britain as Britain knew Rome; and if the fate 
of the British Empire prove happier than that of Rome, 
its survival and good fame will be due only to the en- 
forcement of those lofty standards which British lads 
were taught in public schools. 

The Public Schools and Democracy. — The men- 
tion of Rome recalls at once^ — especially to the Amer- 



294 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

ican reader — the limitations of this picture. We saw 
that the pubhc school is a despotism and necessarily 
so; there was no place for democracy, said Arnold, 
in the childhood of the race, and since schoolboys share 
the psychology of barbarians, the ethos of their cor- 
porate life stands apart from modern democracy. Now 
as regards "imperial" rule, i. e., the control of races 
unripe for self-government, the tool has been ad- 
mirably fitted for the task in hand; but what of the 
future? What guidance will these races require at 
the crucial moment when they feel themselves ripe for 
democracy? That time is not yet; but many an Eng- 
lishman, looking vaguely into the future, wonders if 
the time will ever come when the fulness of demo- 
cratic freedom, which is his boast at home, can ever be 
reconciled with the habits of the ruling caste that holds 
an empire in subjection. We have to admit the phrase 
"ruling caste" — not a rigid, separated class like the 
Brahmins in India or even like the Junker class in 
Germany, but none the less a group which tends by the 
exclusive nature of its schooling to stand apart from 
the commoner sort of people. Avowedly the public 
school sets out to train leaders — or as they are some- 
times called, "the directive classes." Hitherto both 
in England and abroad elbow room has been found 
for a group trained with such tendencies without en- 
dangering the social peace of a community whose aris- 
tocracy is yielding to democracy. It will be our task 
in the concluding chapter to consider whether the 
public schools are likely to adjust themselves to a 
changing world. 



THE ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOL 295 

The Public Schools and Corporate Life. — The re- 
lationship between the public school and the needs of 
the British Empire is perhaps a matter of greater inter- 
est to English students of education than to foreigners. 
The other aspect of the theme, viz. : its relationship to 
the general course of development in pedagogics and in 
sociology has a universal reference. In glancing back 
over the history of educational theory, it is remarkable 
how decisively the sociological aspects of the educative 
process have been ignored. Even writers like Pesta- 
lozzi, glowing with humanitarian enthusiasm, had little 
appreciation of the corporate life of the school, and 
the same is true of Herbart and Froebel. While as 
regards Bain, Herbert Spencer and other English 
writers (apart from Thomas Arnold), these were pos- 
itively out of sympathy with such conceptions, for they 
took an individualistic view not only of schooling, but 
of politics and economics. All these writers ex- 
pounded the psychology of the class room and of the 
school as if each individual was apart from his fellows, 
receiving something called instruction as an isolated 
experience. The social factors involved were rele- 
gated into separate compartments of pedagogy, such 
as : art of questioning, class management, physical ex- 
ercises. 

The change In our professional outlook is the con- 
sequence of profound changes in political and eco- 
nomic theory which, beginning in Germany, have cre- 
ated the ,new science of sociology. It need hardly be 
added that these changes are not the invention of arm- 
chair philosophers, but are the result of still more 



296 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

fundamental changes in public opinion. In Germany 
the change has been well represented among the Her- 
bartians — pupils of Rein at Jena are familiar with his 
eloquent description of the school as "eine beseelte 
Gesellschaft" — and, apart from the Herbartians, in the 
varied attempts to make school games and school ex- 
cursions an effective force. It is in the United States, 
however, that the force of this change has been most 
fully admitted, and with the publication (1898) of 
Dewey's School and Society the new conception ap- 
peared, fully equipped not only as a criticism of exist- 
ing practises, but with constructive plans, worked out 
in an actual school, and producing its fruit in the lives 
of school pupils. 

An extract from a later essay by Professor Dewey 
will exhibit the new principle in a few words : "The 
school can not be a preparation for social life except- 
ing as it reproduces, within itself, typical conditions of 
social life. At present it is largely engaged in the futile 
task of Sisyphus. It is endeavoring to form habits 
in children for use in a social life which, it would 
almost seem, is carefully and purposely kept away 
from vital contact with the child undergoing training. 
The only way to prepare for social life is to engage in 
social life. To form habits of social usefulness and 
serviceableness apart from any direct social need and 
motive, apart from any existing social situation, is, to 
the letter, teaching the child to swim by going through 
motions outside of the water. The most indispensable 
condition is left out of account, and the results are cor- 
respondingly partial." 



THE ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOL 297 

The Life, Not the Curriculum, Socialized. — Now 

the one point to make clear as regards the English pub- 
lic school is that this doctrine of social interaction be- 
tween the members of society, leading to right be- 
havior in the larger community of the world beyond, 
is found fully exhibited in the writings of Arnold and 
his followers. There is, of course, an important dif- 
ference in the application of the doctrine, for while 
Arnold did nothing to "socialize" the curriculum and 
confined his view to the out-of-school life of his pupils, 
Dewey paid chief attention to reform in the curricu- 
lum. Both were right in a sense, for the pupils whom 
Dewey has handled, from five to fourteen years, are 
at a period when reform of the school pursuits is felt 
to be urgent, whereas Arnold's attention was chiefly 
attracted to the stage of adolescence, at which, as we 
have seen, the social instincts demand expression to an 
exceptional degree. 

"We have to remember," says Percival, "that social, 
or corporate, life is a necessity to all of us. Your na- 
ture can not grow to its full and healthy stature if it 
grows apart and isolated. . . . As we sit side by 
side, with one purpose and one aim, uttering the same 
words, thinking the same thoughts, stirred in some de- 
gree by the same impulses, so that our life moves all 
together in something like rhythmic harmony , . . 
in such a case we are not the same as before we met. 
For the time at any rate, if not for all time, and, as a 
consequence of this, our life is a dififerent thing. And 
this change is what we understand by the difference 
between corporate and individual life, between sympa- 
thetic union and isolation." 



298 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

I have taken these words' from the head master of 
Clifton in the seventies rather than from Arnold him- 
self to show that this sociological theory continued to 
be recognized as a foundation of the public-school sys- 
tem. Except in school sermons and in a few biog- 
raphies, the theory has not been expounded in print 
or treated as pedagogic doctrine simply because the 
public-school master has not been concerned with peda- 
gogics. Although Arnold and a few of his successors 
took a lively interest in education as a whole, the gen- 
eral tendency of these schools has been, inevitably, to 
keep apart from the rest of the world : hence we wit- 
ness all through the nineteenth century the practise of 
an important pedagogic system in one group of schools, 
side by side with efforts to develop pedagogics by Bain, 
Spencer, Sully and others; and the two had no con- 
tact with each other, no sympathy and very little ac- 
quaintance in any way. If a personal reference may 
be pardoned, I may state that my edition of Arnold of 
Rugby in 1897 was designed to prove to both parties 
that the time had arrived for each to study the other's 
work; for a mutual recognition which would synthe- 
size the individualistic theories of the one with the 
"corporate life" theory of the other in a more complete 
exposition of the facts of educational science. 

Arnold and Dewey Complementary. — ^We may, 
therefore, regard Arnold in the forties and Dewey in 
the nineties as complementary to each other ; pioneers 
in a new conception of the functions of the school. 
Dewey is the more profound, and has taken the more 
difficult task in hand, since to reshape the entire time- 
table of school pursuits is to inaugurate a revolution 



THE ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOL 299 

in all the procedure of the teaching profession. Ar- 
nold, on the other hand, was a reformer rather than a 
revolutionary; he was confronted by a community 
which displayed in active confusion the social phe- 
nomena which were the subject of his investigation ; 
as a theorist and educational thinker, his task lay in 
discerning the nature of adolescent society and in test- 
ing the value of expedients which would assist its 
moral and intellectual betterment. 



CHAPTER V 

NEW TENDENCIES AND CONDITIONS TO BE MET 

E have seen that the pubhc-school system is 
mainly of interest to observers and students 
because it provides so distinctive an example of a cor- 
porate community life ; the phenomena are sociological ; 
the problems are those of the development of adoles- 
cents in an energetic, masterful environment. We 
have rapidly surveyed the conditions under which 
this type of community has taken shape in England; 
can we make any forecast? Are there any data to 
enable us to judge if changes of importance are taking 
place in the inner life and ways of a public school ? 

New Factors in. Public School Administration. — 
It may be taken for granted that these changes will 
not usually originate from the teachers or governors 
of the schools. School societies all over the world 
tend to emphasize the maintenance of tradition rather 
than attention to reform and progress; this tendency 
is emphasized in the public schools, since both teach- 
ers and taught come from a class where inheritance 
from the past, alike in lands, wealth and culture, af- 
fords the basis for social stability. If we turn then 
our attention to the world outside, from which new 
points of view insert themselves in this conservative 
atmosphere, we can distinguish two sources of in- 

300 



THE ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOL 301 

fluence : the schoolmaster himself is a different person 
from his predecessor of fifty years ago; and the boy 
who comes to the school has already, before arriving 
there, been subject to influences different from those 
of earlier generations. 

Adequately to handle either of these themes we 
should need to diagnose the currents of social change 
which have passed over England as a whole ; this task 
is beyond us, but a few hints may be offered. First 
of all, while the public-school master is still very closeb/ 
tied to his social circle, i. e., Oxford, Cambridge and 
the patrons of the schools, his outlook has been im- 
mensely broadened by the general diffusion of demo- 
cratic sympathies and usage, fostering a disposition 
more tolerant and broadminded. On the other hand it 
is impossible to escape the impression that he is less 
of an idealist than his predecessors, more inclined to 
treat his school as a business investment in which he 
must make sure of the profits. England during the 
last twenty years has made enormous strides in all the 
external comforts of life: living has become more 
luxurious, London more attractive, the continent a 
finer health resort; these things have played a too 
prominent part in the life of these societies and brought 
them in peril of degeneration. 

The situation may be illustrated by the relation of 
the teaching staff to the Church of England. Out of 
thirty-eight assistant masters at Rugby just now, only 
six are clergymen ; and this proportion, say ten to fif- 
teen per cent., represents the case in most of the other 
public schools. In Arnold's day the proportion would 
be fifty or sixty per cent. The change is due partly to 



302 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

the more tolerant spirit of the times : for the patrons 
of these schools do not nowadays require the title 
of "Reverend" to be attached to a schoolmaster as a 
guarantee of his moral probity; partly to a more con- 
scientious examination by the masters of the obliga- 
tions incurred in the clerical calling, but partly, one 
imagines, to the unwillingness of many men to treat 
their employment as a grave pastoral responsibility, in 
the spirit of Arnold and the men of his day. Fifty 
years ago many able university men of the graver sort 
took to schoolmastering along with "holy orders" as a 
fine field for national service, adopting the calling in 
the spirit of service: some still do so; but for many 
others the call to service can be answered equally well 
in many other spheres of national life, which have 
only asserted their claims since Arnold's day. Thus 
the teacher's work, by comparison, has come to be re- 
garded as a somewhat mean and cramped employment. 
It is averred that the quality of schoolmaster who 
now leaves Oxford and Cambridge to serve these 
schools is impoverished. These statements are difficult 
either to disprove or to maintain, but there seems to be 
some good reason to accept them as at least partly true. 
The Public-School Master Hears the Call of the 
World. — What is still more certain is that when a man 
has taken an assistant mastership in a public school he 
is not so likely to remain in the work as his predecessor 
of fifty years ago. In those days the only alternatives 
were to take up clerical work proper as a parish priest, 
or to take the chances of success in an academic or lit- 
erary career at one of the universities or in the metrop- 
olis. These avenues of change are still open and at- 



THE ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOL 303 

tract some away: for example, the Reverend W. 
Temple, the young head master of Repton College, son 
of Archbishop Temple, who was once head master of 
Rugby, has resigned Repton for the rectorship of a 
London parish. But the development of national edu- 
cation has offered a scope for such men more in line 
with the narrower field of professional life. Many ad- 
ministrative positions analogous to the American office 
of superintendent of education are now available, and 
a man who has spent three or four years as a public- 
school master, as the sequel to a good university record, 
is often chosen for such work. Then the rapid growth of 
day secondary schools of a type similar to German or 
American city high schools, has created a demand for 
high-school principals; and these appointments are 
frequently filled by young men from the public schools, 
who prefer to secure a post of larger responsibility 
although it cuts them off from the more congenial at- 
mosphere in which they have been bred. 

The Englishman, like the American, is by nature a 
man of action and enterprise: he likes to rule, to 
achieve ; and these qualities are hard to reconcile with 
the pastoral office, that is to say with the quiet exercise 
of intellectual and moral influence in a confined society. 
Where a man of ability and resource can be so satis- 
fied, content with having his reward in the success of 
his pupils in later life, satisfied in his sentiments by as- 
sociation with a corporate body which has great tradi- 
tions and noble ideals, such a man is a great treasure in 
a public school although he remain an assistant master 
for forty years. There are not a few such men serving 
these schools to-day, and they are the salt of the earth ; 



304 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

but the tendencies of the times as well as the genius of 
the English character tend to limit the supply of them. 

A New Type of Boy in the Public Schools. — 
Turning now to the boys who come to these schools, 
can we put into words the changes in environment and 
influence which make them a different sort of material 
from the boys that Thomas Arnold found at Rugby in 
the forties? The fundamentals, of course, of boy na- 
ture are the same; but in every rank of society the 
deeper currents of change in schooling must be traced 
to the influences which operate from infancy on the 
disposition and tastes of the young before they enter 
the school walls. For school is a society in which the 
members exercise an active influence upon one another, 
although they have no intention of so doing : the influ- 
ence in fact is all the more powerful on this account. 

Speaking quite generally one may note two influ- 
ences : the one pervading all classes of English society, 
the other confined to the social group in which public 
schools are bred. The first is the influence of "free- 
dom," relaxation of old ideas of discipline. Freedom 
was not only the leading note of nineteenth-century 
politics, but it permeated by a thousand routes into the 
disposition of men and women in their homes and their 
social circles. The child has been recognized as an indi- 
vidual, with some claim to the indulgence of individual 
tastes, with still stronger claims on sympathy and tol- 
erance ; he has been treated more as an equal, entitled 
to read the newspapers and the novels, to travel with 
his parents, to see and hear far more than he can un- 
derstand of the complex bustling world which railways, 
telegraphs and motor-cars have brought to his doors. 



THE ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOL 305 

If one can select one epithet to describe the change it 
will be precocity. Every one admits how rapidly habits 
and views of behavior have developed; tendencies 
which in medieval and in ancient times would have 
taken a century to accomplish are now fully organized 
in thirty years or less. Few people as yet seem to rec- 
ognize how this progress is accelerated by the inclusion 
of children within the sphere of these operations. Not 
only does the child tend to imitate the airs of knowing- 
ness and capacity which he finds in his adult associates, 
but the assumption of these habits prepares him for a 
rapid adoption of whatever of novelty may be offered 
when he in turn plays the role of an adult. 

The best way for an onlooker to grasp the force of 
this situation is to read in succession two novels deal- 
ing with the public school, taking first Tom Brown's 
School Days, and then The Harrovians, by Arnold 
Lunn. They are both of them authentic, i. e., they give 
a faithful record of the mind of certain schoolboys of 
the period. It would be false to regard either of them 
as representing the average life of boys of their epoch ; 
Tom Brown tends to optimism, while Peter and his as- 
sociates give a very depressing view of life at Harrow ; 
but as data for sociological study they are unequaled. 

The Trend of the Times. — Now the public schools 
and the society to which they belong have sought to op- 
pose the excesses of precocity by strengthening the 
influence of convention. Young people are more gov- 
erned by social practise, by "good form," than their 
elders are, for the simple reason that they are learning 
how to live and they readily take on the pattern pre- 
sented to them. A public-school boy to-day lives in a 



306 TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

society governed to an extraordinary extent by rules 
and shibboleths. Some of these appear ridiculous to 
the outsider ; most of them unnecessary ; but they are 
to him the correct thing, just as evening dress is the 
correct thing for a gentleman to wear at dinner. The 
preparatory school to which we have alluded above is 
partly a provision to secure that the proper style and 
form for a "young gentleman" is molded right through 
from the age of ten or even younger, so that when the 
boy presents himself for entrance to his public school 
he is already shaped to pattern, both intellectually and 
morally. Space does not permit of a deeper diagnosis 
even if the present writer were fitted by recent and 
intimate study of these schools for fuller interpreta- 
tion ; but he believes that by tracing the course of these 
two large principles, freedom in national life leading 
to precocity, countered by the maintenance of exclusive 
convention, a student can find the key to explain the 
changes in the material which the public-school master 
of the present day has to educate. 

The Softening Tendencies of the Age. — By way of 
comparison with my own impression, I have asked a 
friend who has spent all his life (except four years at 
Oxford) in the public schools to tell me in what direc- 
tion he can see change in the boy of to-day as compared 
with the boy of forty years ago. He writes : "The boys 
of my time were much rougher and more independent 
of masters; . . . they have become much more 
polished and they are softer; their ideal is 'to have a 
good time,' and their parents encourage this. But they 
have a lot of good stuff in them yet: Rugby football 
and self-government keep them manly. There is noth- 



THE ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOL 307 

ing so delightful as the way in which leading boys in 
a house will cooperate with their house master if he is 
at all keen in everything affecting the welfare of the 
house, and will give him their confidence if he has 
sense. ... I think many preparatory schools 
have much to answer for in making the boys soft and 
pampered. They are driven (being commercial specu- 
lators) by the need of pleasing the mothers. . . . 
The great difference is that boys now stay at these pre- 
paratory schools till thirteen or fourteen years of age : 
and this has greatly modified the character of the mod- 
em public-school boy. . . . He is nowadays very 
amenable to discipline — no bullying — no fights — no 
stern characters among the boys themselves : every one 
is very good-natured and pleasant. I should have said 
that they were hyper-civilized till I saw how they have 
stood the test of war." 

What of the Future? — To forecast the future is at 
all times a rash adventure: writing at this moment, 
when England is subject to an upheaval such as 
we have not experienced for a hundred years, the 
attempt would be more than rash. One feature of 
this great war as affecting the public schools is suf- 
ficiently clear: they have contributed a very large 
proportion of the officers in all grades of the national 
army. Our last campaign of importance, the Boer War 
in South Africa, taught some lessons which the nation 
at large scarcely understood, but which were well ap- 
preciated by men of affairs: the failure of our officers 
both in intelligence and in professional skill was ad- 
mitted on every hand. Since then a diligent effort has 
been made not only to reform quite radically the train- 



TYPES OF SCHOOLS FOR BOYS 

ing of the professional soldier, but to create by the ma- 
chinery known as the "Officers' Training Corps" (O. 
T. C) a body of young men in the universities and 
public schools, equipped with an elementary knowledge 
and skill in military matters which could be drawn 
upon whenever the empire demanded. Many hundreds 
of boys and masters in the public schools as well as in 
the universities responded to this appeal. Especially 
during the last five years these corps have advanced 
rapidly both in efficiency and in numbers. On the 
declaration of war they were ready to supply thousands 
of officers for the new levies popularly known as Kitch- 
ener's Army; and at the same time both the univer- 
sities and the public schools have virtually been turned 
into military camps, busily training thousands more to 
take the places of those who have "gone to the front." 
True enough the same devotion to the empire and 
zeal for military service now infuse all ranks of soci- 
ety, and all the belligerent countries ; but what is 
claimed for the public-school system is that it produces 
a type of character which shapes young men to be 
leaders, officers whom privates will trust and follow. 
The colossal armies now fronting each other in east 
and west are suffering more from the loss of officers 
and commanders than of private soldiers, and although 
England has become so largely a democratic country, it 
is still influenced in all sorts of ways by tradition : the 
combination of democratic impulse with the survival of 
class feeling seems to meet the practical needs of the 
situation. Hence one of the by-products of this des- 
perate struggle is becoming apparent, a minor "good" 
to offset a little the gigantic evils of our time — the 



THE ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOL 309 

classes are being brought into closer sympathy. These 
public-school boys and university students, before they 
are of age, are brought face to face with miners from 
the pits, with clerks from city offices : all of them of 
their free will adopting a new and perilous career. 
Here is an education in social behavior, in discipline 
and fellowship, which no one designed, but which in 
every camp in Great Britain is welding men together 
and teaching us lessons which will never be forgotten. 



THE END 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Academy : origin and history of the American, 1-7 ; aims and 
ideals of, 8-13 ; its place in education, 14-21 ; advantages 
and disadvantages of, 22-43 ; the future of, 44-49. 

Action: must keep pace with thought and feeling, 184-185; 
kinship of doers, 192-193; Englishmen and Americans 
are men of, 303. 

Age of Pupils : not set by academy, 31-32 ; average higher at 
academy than at private school, 34 ; steps taken to lower, 
34-35 ; in English public schools, 265-266. 

American Temperament, its effect on schools, 181-183. 

Andover : founding of Phillips Academy at, 3-4 ; growth, 6 ; 
emphasis on character, 9-10; value of its tradition, 26, 
133. 

Arnold, Doctor : 131 ; influence of, 259-261 ; his selection of 
teachers, 264; an observation by, 266; his sixth form, 
268-269 ; returns to his old university, 272 ; at Winches- 
ter, 290; did not "socialize" the curriculum, 297-299; 
changes since his day, 301-302, 304. 

Barracks : 65 ; absence of luxury in, 67-68 ; inspections of, 82. 

Cadet: daily life of, 66-79; academic and military instruction 
of, 80-84 ; methods of instructing, 85-91 ; government by, 
92-96; reward and punishment of, 110-119; ideals of 
service inculcated, 123-125. 

Cadet Officers : selection of, 93-94 ; training of, 94-95. 

Certificate: admission to college by not the method of the 
academy, 17; not the method of Culver, 91. 

Character: emphasis upon by academies, 8-11, 13, 23; develop- 
ment of by military schools, 123-125; by manual train- 
ing, 147-149 ; character formation not a thing apart, 183- 
184; developed by habitual constructive work, 187; by 
contact with teachers, 188 ; habit and character, 212-213 ; 
kind of formed by English public schools, 291, 292-293. 

Church School : contrasted with academy, 29 ; history of, 197- 
206; aims, 207-218; activities, 219-234; its place in edu- 
cation, 235-251. 

313 



314 INDEX 

Citizenship: preparation for by the academy, 11, 45, 48-49; by 
the military school, 53, 120-122; by the manual-training 
high school, 138-139; by the church school, 207-208; by 
the English public school, 269, 288-299. 

Classics, 141, 142, 187, 201, 212-216, 228-229, 244, 249-250, 251, 
273, 276-279. 

Coeducation : proscriptions against, 5 ; value of, 190-192 ; in 
English schools, 286-287. 

Coit, Doctor, head master of St. Paul's, 203-204. 

College: the academy as a preparation for, 12-13, 14, 16-17; 
function of eastern colleges, 15; military colleges, 57- 
60; preparation for by military schools, 90; relation of 
manual-training high schools to, 149-153 ; church school 
a preparation for, 197, 205-206, 208-209 ; its influence on 
church school, 209-210, 228, 249-250; "fitting" schools 
for, 235-236; relation of English pubHc school to, 265, 
274-277. 

Conference, of church schools, 248-249. 

Country, emphasis upon by church schools, 202. 

Country Day School, rise of, 22. 

Culver Military Academy: its place in the government classi- 
fication, 57-58 ; a "distinguished institution," 60-61 ; the 
new cadet at, 64, 69 ; drills, 71, 72 ; guard duty, 73 ; rec- 
reation, 74 ; system, 78 ; spiritual phase of education, 78- 
79 ; daily schedule, 79 ; academic staflf, 81 ; military staff, 
82 ; method of instruction, 85-86, 88-91 ; records kept, 
94; discipline menaced, 107-109; rewards and penalties, 
110-111; court-martial, 115-119; training for citizenship, 
121 ; President Wilson's speech to Culver Black Horse 
Troop, 124-125. 

Day School, at a disadvantage, 23-24. 

Democracy: in the academy, 26-27, 48-49; in military school, 
122-123 ; in manual-training high school, 132-135, 139, 
193 ; not possible in school government, 269 ; the Eng- 
lish public school and, 293-294; effect on English public 
school master, 301. 

Discipline : at military academy, 87-88, 92-93 ; need of, 97-98 ; 
effectiveness of military, 98-104; menaced by combina- 
tions, 106-109; rewards and penalties, 110-119; deten- 
tion, 227-228; relaxation of in English life, 304. 

Distinguished Institutions, 59-60. 

Dormitories: in academy, 25 ; in church school, 231. 

Dummer Academy, the oldest American academy, 3, 25. 

Economy of Time: produced by military training, 69; by 
manual training, 149. 



INDEX 315 

Education: what it includes, 10-11, 13; military training as an 
adjunct to, 53-54, 58; educational worth of a subject, 
143-144 ; manual arts as factors in, 153, 283 ; part played 
by religious instruction in, 197, 198; formal conception 
of, 207; religion and education are one, 210-212; formal 
discipline, 214-216; physical training a part of, 217; 
value of dormitory life, 231 ; questionable value of 
single type of, 236-237, 241-242; absence of vocational, 
244; systems of slow to change, 250-251; sociological 
aspects of long ignored, 295 ; war as, 309. 

Elective System : importance of right selection, 154-155 ; a 
necessity, 155-156; synopsis of one, 156-159; justification 
of, 159-164; prevents uniformity, 165-166; vitalizing ef- 
fect of, 187; absence of at church school, 236-237; 
forced upon English public schools, 273-274; compli- 
cates problem, 278. 

Endowment: of academy, 27; need of for church school, 247, 
249; of English colleges, 274-275. 

English Public Schools : history of, 255-261 ; distinctive fea- 
tures of, 262-271 ; curriculum in, 272-287 ; relation to 
English life, 288-299; new tendencies and conditions to 
be met by, 300-309. 

Equipment : of academy taken by high school, 5 ; in academy, 
24-25 ; of small importance, 130 ; makes for permanenca 
of church school, 246; of English public school, 262-263. 

Eton, fame of, 26, 133, 202, 255. 

Exercise, stress on physical, 42-43, ()!, 69, 16, 201, 207-208, 230- 
231. 

Exeter: founding of Phillips Exeter Academy, 3-4; growth, 
6; value of its tradition, 26, 133. 

Experiment: constant by manual-training high school, 137- 
138; in church school, 250; not easy in English schools, 
287. 

Faculty. See Teachers. 

Finishing School : the academy as, 21 ; the military school as, 

90-91 ; the church school not, 197, 205-206, 208-209. 
Fitting School, 235-236. 

Girls. See Coeducation. 

Government Aid, to military training school, 55, 59, 61-63. 

Graduates : commission for from military school, 60, 62 ; dis- 
tinction of military school, 121-122; interest in by high 
schools, 135-136; activities of from church school, 245- 
246; interest in school, 246-247; role of English public 
school, 288-294. 



316 INDEX 

.Groton: founded, 204; emphasis on religious instruction, 211- 
212 ; summer missionary camp conducted by, 222 ; direct 
method of teaching, 224; price of tuition, 237; affected 
by college requirements, 245. 

Habit, value of, 212-213. 

Harrow : fame of, 202, 255 ; under Dr. Vaughan, 273. 

Hazing, 104-106. 

High School : largely supplants the academy, 4-5 ; influence of 
academy on, 7; yields to public demand for practical 
subjects, 12; subject to political influence, 15; its rise 
does not affect church school, 204-205 ; effect of univer- 
sity upon, 209; impossibility of religious training in, 46, 
211 ; little cooperation of with parents, 239. 

Home: absence of obedience and respect for authority at, 
100; effect of manual-training high school upon, 188- 
189; church school similar to, 217-218, 247; cooperation 
with, 239-240. 

Ideals : of founders of American academy, 8-11 ; of military 
training school, 123-125 ; of manual-training high school, 
136-139, 181, 192-193; English public-school master less 
of an idealist than formerly, 301. 

Ignorance, dangers of, 10-11. 

Manual Arts : their function, 140-142 ; educational value of, 
143-149; making a place for themselves, 151; usefulness 
of, 169-179; in church school, 230, 237-238, 244; forced 
upon English public schools, 273-274, 283-285. 

Manual-Training High School : its province, 129-139 ; place of 
manual arts in the curriculum, 140-153 ; elective system 
and project work, 154-166; vocational possibilities of, 
167-180; by-products, 181-193. 

Military Schools in America: origin and classification of, 53- 
63 ; daily life of the cadet in, 64-79 ; the faculty of, 80- 
84; studies and method of instruction in, 85-91; govern- 
ment by cadets in, 92-96; discipline in, 97-109; rewards 
and penalties in, 110-119; ideals of, 120-125. 

Military Spirit : kept alive, 56 ; militarism not bred by military 
training school, 120-121. 

Moral Training. See Character. 

Outside Influences : to be combatted, 23-24, 35-36, 135-136 ; the 
future of the academy affected by, 44-47. 

Parents, attitude of, 32-34, 98, 108-109, 136, 181, 188, 217-218. 



INDEX 317 

Pedagogy, limited interest in by church school and English 
public-school masters, 216, 266, 298. 

Personality: of founders of earliest academies, 8; need of in 
teachers, 39, 130; influence of, 131, 201-204, 218, 247-248, 
_ 259-260. 

Physical Training. See Exercise. 

Politics : influence of on public schools and state universities, 
15 ; freedom of academy from, 27-28, 35-37 ; grave dan- 
ger of, 35-36. 

Prefects: in church school, 232; in English public school 
(prepostors), 268. 

Prussian System: contrasted with English, 279-280, 282; Ger- 
many introduces science of sociology, 295-296. 

Recreation : at academy, 42-43 ; at military school, 74-75, 85 ; 
at church school, 230-231. 

Relations of Pupil and Teacher, 25, 29, 38-39, 83-84, 188, 262- 
264, 269-271. 

Religion : in the academy, 2, 13, 39-41 ; lack of in public 
school, 46-47; in military school, 75, 78-79; basis of 
church school, 197-199, 201, 205, 207, 210-212, 219-222; 
questionable value of disciplinary religious training, 242^ 
243; moral reformation in English schools, 258-259; not 
ignored in English public school, 262. 

Religious Denominations : restrictions of check growth of 
early academies, 5 ; the sectarian academy, 40 ; sectarian 
schools supported by public money contrary to Amer- 
ican tradition, 46; church school the outgrowth of a 
single religious denomination, 197, 237. 

Reserve Officers' Training Corps : stimulus of, 56 ; nature of, 
61-63 ; in England, 307-308. 

Responsibility : developed by academy, 29-31 ; felt by cadet 
officer, 93, 94-96; developed by discipline, 114; felt by 
high school for all, 134-136; of older boys in English 
public school, 267-270. 

Round Hill School: founded, 199; nature of, 199-202; few 
changes since, 250-251. 

Routine: value of, 41-42; in military school, 66-78; prepara- 
tion for life's by manual-training high school, 179-180; 
in church school, 233-234. 

Rugby: fame of, 133, 202, 255, 258; under Arnold, 259-261, 
264 ; original building, 263 ; school list, 280-282 ; manual 
training at, 285. 

St. John's (Manlius) : its place in government classification, 
58; a "distinguished institution," 60-61. 



318 INDEX 

St. Mark's : founded, 204 ; emphasis on religious instruction, 
211-212; price of tuition, 237; affected by college re- 
quirements, 245. 

St. Paul's : founded, 202-204 ; spirit of, 218 ; emphasis on re- 
ligious instruction, 211-212; price of tuition, 237; af- 
fected by college requirements, 245. 

Scholarship, system at English universities, 274-277, 278. 

Self-Government : amount of in military school, 92-96; in 
church school, 232-233 ; in English public school, 268-269. 

Social Considerations : relation of boys and girls in high 
school, 191-192; influence boy's choice of school, 206; 
advantage of serving a single social group, 238; disad- 
vantage of, 238-239; rise of English public school 
caused by, 255-259; social groupings, 266-268; influence 
on English teachers, boys, and schools of recent social 
changes, 300-307. 

Supervision : close at church school, 29, 231 ; little at academy, 
29-34; at miHtary school, 82-83, 87-89; need of, 98-99; 
study under supervision as distinguished from recita- 
tion, 223-224; advantages and disadvantages of, 240-242. 

Teachers : good position of at academy, 36-39 ; the faculty of 
the military school, 80-84; the house master in English 
public school, 263-264 ; the English public-school teacher, 
272-273; effect of new conditions upon, 301-304. See 
also Personality and Relation of Pupil and Teacher. 

Trade School: differs from manual-training high school, 142- 
143 ; its place can be taken by high school, 176-177. 

Tradition : influence of, 25-26, 216-217, 257 ; absence of in high 
school, 133; makes for permanence of church school, 
246-247; as a check, 269; force of, 287, 300. 

Universities. See College. 

Virginia Military Institute : founded, 55 ; place in government 
classification, 58 ; "distinguished institution," 60-61 ; 
preparation for citizenship at, 121-122. 

Vocational Training: increasing space occupied by in high 
school, 45-46 ; a relative term, 167-169. See also Manual 
Arts and Manual-Training High School. 

West Point : foundation and influence of, 53-54, 55, 56, 80 ; ap- 
pointments to, 60, 62; barracks, 82; academic efficiency 
of, 86-87, 89-90; hazing at, 104; training for citizenship, 
121-122. 



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